


Viper's Den

by dblanc



Series: Convergence [1]
Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz, Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Character(s) of Color, Crossover, Gen, Locked-room murder/Impossible crime, Murder Mystery, Mystery, mild supernatural elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 53,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dblanc/pseuds/dblanc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex Rider may be out of MI6, but his troubles are far from over. Secrets are brewing, danger is gathering, and Fate throws him into the path of a teenage detective and a strange little girl. Can the sleuth and the spy work together to solve a seemingly impossible murder?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer (applies for all chapters): Neither Alex Rider nor Detective Conan/Magic Kaito belongs to me. Actually, if you recognize it, it does not belong to me.
> 
> Warnings: Spoilers for the entire Alex Rider series, and up to around ep 479 of Detective Conan (the Detective Koshien arc).
> 
> Pairings: Some light Hakuba/Akako later on.

**A/N:** This is a crossover between the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz and Detective Conan/Magic Kaito by Gosho Aoyama (and possibly more to come). That being said, you can probably read this with knowledge of only one of the above fandoms without getting lost.

The prologue/prelude is mainly setup for the long term plot arc, though if you know your Magic Kaito canon you probably have a good idea where it's going. The main plot starts off next chapter.

* * *

**20 Years Ago, somewhere in the United States  
**

It was a cool evening at the end of October, when a black car pulled into the driveway of the Halloway Mansion.

The guard who stood on a corner of the grounds had seen this car and many others like it ferry passengers across the bridge and over the rushing waters of the dark river which surrounded the old house on three sides. Sometimes the ones who stepped out were tall, dangerous men with hard faces and cold eyes. Sometimes they were bland men, who would step into a crowd and vanish like factory smoke drifting into smog. Sometimes they were women with swaying steps and hungry eyes. Sometimes they walked out of the house eventually and drove away again; sometimes they never did.

There were two who stepped out of the car this time. The guard recognized the man in black immediately; he was the right hand of the man who owned the old mansion, and his presence made even the hardened guard uneasy. The other was a woman he had never seen before. She wore a long dress which may have been white at one point but was now a dingy grey, and her hair was such an obnoxious shade of blonde it could only have been dyed. A large hat obscured the top of her face, but he caught a glimpse of cold eyes and marble features. The guard watched the two enter the house, the woman in front, the man behind.

It was nighttime and almost the end of the guard's shift when the two came out of the house, and he watched the two walk towards the car, again the woman in front, the man behind.

The two were halfway to the car when suddenly two shots rang out, and the woman fell to the ground, her legs red and gushing blood. Her hat tumbled to the ground. She turned her body with difficulty and stared at the man in black, who raised the gun to her head and fired for the third and last time.

Then there was the sudden sound of footsteps, and then his boss ran unto the scene, staring at the grisly tableau. His face was red with rage, and one hand clenched a gemstone which sparkled in the light of the full moon.

"The bitch tricked me!" The fist shook, and he threw the stone onto the still corpse. "Fake."

The man in black looked at the stone, then at the body. "She wasn't carrying anything else on her...and she sure as hell can't tell us anything now."

The boss thought for a minute, then spoke. "Dispose of these first, then go after Blake. Quickly." He turned and strode back towards his house.

The man in black nodded. He walked to the body and quickly made sure there were no signs of life, then stared for almost half a minute at the gem. It glittered back, silent and sparkling. Finally he gestured the nervous guard over. "Bag these and dump it in the river."

The guard followed his instructions, bagging the corpse and carrying it close to the river and its rushing waters. At the edge of the water he hesitated. He should be following his instructions to the letter, he knew, but something about the way the gem had tossed out it's rich colours under the moonlight fascinated him. He had some knowledge of gemology picked up in his wayward youth, and the tidbits which remained in his brain were firmly insisting that he was looking at a real and very valuable jewel.

_What the hell. No one else wants it anyways_ , he thought, and furtively slipped the gem into his pocket.

Thirty minutes later the guard returned from the river and drove home for the night, both his task and his shift completed, and a slight jitter in his movements was the only hint of the jewel in his pocket.

* * *

**3 months ago, London**

The casual observer may have seen a certain woman walk into a flat in the Docklands of London one fine evening, but it is doubtful that they would have paid any special attention to the event. The woman was a short, mousy brunette with a pinched face wearing a common black trench coat, and the apartment building was indistinguishable from almost any other found in the area. Had they been able to follow the woman up the steps, though, they would have seen something very unusual indeed.

The building contained a total of five flats, but none would ever be available to rent for a member of the general public. The entire structure had a state-of-the-art security system incongruous with the rather dingy looking exterior, including patrolling guards with concealed firearms who nodded respectfully to the woman as she climbed to the top floor, and all of its inhabitants seemed to share a noted preference for wearing black.

As the woman ascended, her appearance underwent an impressive metamorphosis. She suddenly gained almost half a foot in height as her posture straightened, and the mousy brown wig was removed to reveal a head of bright blonde hair. By the time she reached the top, a good portion of the general public would have been able to recognize the lovely Aryan features of the American actress Chris Vineyard.

The people here, though, simply called her Vermouth.

The pair of guards waved her through the door on the left of the top flat, and she entered into a sterile room which had been outfitted like a hospital ward. She walked over to the single bed with its accompanying medical monitors and equipment, and the unconscious man lying peacefully on it.

The man looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, had pale blond hair cropped short, and a scar that cut ruler-straight across his neck. Vermouth knew that he had pale blue eyes, that MI6 had a dossier on the man under the name Yassen Gregorovich, and that he was an assassin currently presumed dead by the rest of the world.

She looked up at the sound of hasty steps approaching, and smiled at the doctor who entered nervously.

"Hello Doctor, I'm glad to see you've been taking care of our friend here so well," she said. "Wake him up, won't you? We have some plans to discuss."


	2. Encounters in London

**The Present, London  
**

Alex was both glad and apprehensive to be back in London. On one hand, he had the opportunity to visit his old haunts. He had just left Tom Harris' house, and it had been great to catch up with Tom and James Hale. London was filled with memories, both pleasant and painful.

Edward Pleasure had to visit for about a week for a business article he was researching, and both Alex and Sabina had decided to tag along, having just started their summer break. After almost an entire year in America, both were eager for a chance to see England again.

Now he was alone, wandering through the city which had been his home for so long. He walked along the riverside, then browsed through the markets in Camden, picking up a few things to take back to Sabina and her family (his now too, he reminded himself). He carefully avoided going anywhere near the building which called itself the Royal & General Bank, but was really nothing of the sort.

For lunch he decided to eat at the Crown and Dragon, a restaurant in King's Cross that was popular for its pub fare and billiards tables. As he ate, he watched another teenager utterly destroy his opponents at billiards. The other boy was tall, looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old, and like Alex he had blond hair and dark brown eyes. He also looked to be at least part Asian- Alex guessed Chinese or Japanese. Unlike Alex who wore a t-shirt and shorts, the other teen was dressed much more formally and expensively in tan trousers, a dress shirt and a brown blazer. Alex couldn't decide whether he was trying to look twenty years older, or to emulate a university professor.

As he finished up his fish and chips, Alex heard a quick tap, followed by the neat click of billiards balls sinking into a pocket. The boy's current opponent, a man who was in his late forties dressed in jeans and a Metallica t-shirt, broke into a profusement of swearing. Alex couldn't hear his words or those of the boy's reply over the chatter in the pub, but the arrogant smirk on the other teen's face was clear enough. Alex contemplated challenging him - it had been a while since he had a good game of billiards - but the other boy seemed to be done for the day.

* * *

As the other blond left the Crown and Dragon, Alex noticed a man-dark clothes, a few inches taller than he was, slouching, baseball cap concealing his face-following the other teen. Something about the too casual way the man moved, like a hunter stalking his prey, raised warning bells in Alex's head. He had a sinking feeling that the man wasn't following the boy to congratulate him on his billiards game.

He looked around. The restaurant was still relatively crowded, and the man was trying to attract as little attention as possible. After a moment's hesitation, he picked up his glass of Coke, and ambled straight into the man on his way towards the door, spilling half of his drink on the man's shirt.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Here!" Profusely apologetic, Alex grabbed a handful of paper napkins from a nearby table and tried to clean up the man's jacket. With a scowl, the man quickly pushed him away and left the pub. Alex waited until he was out of sight, then followed. He was now certain that the man was carrying a concealed handgun. Part of him whispered that he should ignore what was surely going to become a dangerous situation yet again, but he could not let the other boy come to harm. He dropped enough money to cover his lunch bill, then hurried out the door, stealing a small steak knife and a few packets of pepper from a nearby table on the way.

He followed the man into an alleyway about two blocks from the restaurant, one of those urban areas unlikely to be discovered unless you were specifically looking for it. There were various bits of detritus lying around on the ground, mainly broken beer bottles and scraps of plastic. Several metal rubbish bins and what looked like a discarded and highly unsanitary couch leaned forlornly against the grimy brick walls. Alex saw that the situation was actually worse than he had feared. The man had caught up with his prey and was now tying the other teen's hands securely behind his back. The blond's face was grim but he offered no resistance, and as he quietly slipped closer Alex saw why. There was a second hostage, a young girl, eight or nine years old at most, with cropped tea brown hair. She stood completely still in the grips of the second kidnapper who had an arm across her throat and a gun pressed to her temple.

The man saw Alex, still holding napkins in his hand, and swore. The concealed gun made its appearance from an inner pocket. Alex's mind raced. He was still far enough away that he had a good chance of finding cover behind the rubbish bins in time if the man started shooting. But then Alex saw the other boy tense as if preparing to make a move while his kidnapper was distracted, and remembered that this wasn't like one of his missions where he was on his own. There were two hostages whose safety he also had to consider.

Unfortunately, the second kidnapper noticed the other blond's slight movement, and he kicked the boy to the ground before focusing his gun on Alex. Alex sighed, and raised his hands in the air to show that he was not a threat.

The other blond looked to be firmly trussed up, so the other man moved onto Alex. He tensed; there was a chance to disarm the man once he got closer, but there was the little girl with the gun to her head to consider.

The little girl who suddenly began to cry out, yelling a few words of what sounded like Japanese. This gave Alex a few scant seconds of distraction, but the other man was still too far away to be disarmed at close range. By the time the girl's captor forced her mouth shut, the other man and his gun were both refocused on Alex.

He let himself be tied up as well, and waited for another opportunity.

* * *

Alex and the other captives were dumped into the back of a modified delivery lorry. The walls were steel sheets, with criss-crossed steel rods girding the corners of the lorry. It looked to be specially soundproofed for the occasion, from what Alex could see in the dim light coming from a medium-sized plastic torch on the ground. Once they started moving, the torch would roll around wildly every time the lorry made a turn or went over a bump, making it even more difficult to ascertain his surroundings.

Alex tested his bonds, and found them to be very securely tied. He looked over at his companions. The other boy also seemed to be trying to find a way out of his ropes, to no avail. The little girl's arms were tied in front of her instead of in the back like the boys, and she had curled herself into a small ball. Alex remembered that she had spoken Japanese, and was trying to think of the few phrases he had picked up from Tom during his anime phase, when the other boy spoke.

"Well, I had hoped to be introduced in more auspicious circumstances." His voice with it's slight British accent was deceptively calm, as if they were meeting over a billiards game back in the pub instead of in a kidnapper's truck heading god-knows-where. His sharp brown eyes looked over Alex carefully, giving Alex the uncomfortable feeling of being put under a microscope and analyzed. "I'm Saguru Hakuba. Why did you follow me out of the pub and into this mess?"

"Alex Rider. The man had a gun and was following you." The name Hakuba sounded familiar... "Any relation to Hakuba Laboratories?"

"It's owned by my family. Started by my grandfather, and my mother is the current head of the company."

Alex's new high school in America tried to make sure their students had some idea of what they wanted to do in the future before the heavy pressure of college preparation in eleventh grade began, and Alex remembered the name from his research into possible career choices. Hakuba Laboratories was renowned worldwide for their research in forensic sciences and technology. They offered a summer camp for high school students which Alex had applied to, but due to his record of missed classes and poor grades while on missions for MI6 he hadn't been accepted. Hakuba's family must be extremely wealthy.

Hakuba seemed to guess the direction Alex's thoughts were taking. "They could be planning to hold me for ransom. It wouldn't be the first time. This could also be revenge. My family has made plenty of enemies through the years. I do not know why they took you and the girl as well, though."

Alex tipped his head in the little girl's direction. She had turned perfectly still ever since they started speaking, though he could not tell whether it was in fear or interest. "Do you know Japanese? I'm not sure if she can speak English."

"As it happens, I do." Hakuba turned to the girl and spoke a series of sentences in fluid Japanese. Alex could not understand anything more than Hakuba telling their names, but he guessed that the other boy was trying to reassure the little girl. He stopped as the girl suddenly looked up, scanning them both with pale blue eyes before focusing on Hakuba. Then she spoke, in perfectly comprehensible if slightly accented English.

"Hakuba-san. My name is Ai Haibara. I believe you already know a friend and classmate of mine? His name is Conan Edogawa."


	3. An Unexpected Alliance

Hakuba had not expected a mention of the eerily intelligent boy he had met twice before, once at the Sunset Mansion and once at the Detective Koushien. Haibara looked to be about eight years old, near Conan Edogawa's age, and like Edogawa up close the raw intelligence in her eyes made her look older. He carefully looked Haibara over, observing as much as he could in the weak and inconstant lighting.

_Short cropped brown-blonde hair, last cut less than a week ago in Asia. Light blue eyes. Mixed blood, most likely part Japanese, part ... American, going by her accent. Clothes are of good quality material but not expensive or distinctive, and chosen to allow for easy movement. Toy badge pinned to her jacket's lapel, and wears a wristwatch more suitable for a boy. Wait, I've seen a watch like that before...Approximately eight or nine years old, like Edogawa. Also acts older than she is, like Edogawa when he's not trying to pull the cute little kid act. Any normal child would be in hysterics right now. What are they teaching in that elementary school of theirs?_

His other companion was just as much of a puzzle. _Sixteen or seventeen years old. British, but spent a decent amount of time travelling abroad, including recently in the United States. Trained in at least one martial art, but not just that. Military? No. Something else. Is hiding some pepper from the Crown and Dragon in his shoes. Dangerous._

"Could you get out of your ropes, Haibara?" There was a chance their kidnappers were more careless tying up a little girl than they had been with him and Alex.

Ai tested her own bonds briefly. They were more loosely secured than those of the boys, but still too strong for her own smaller, weaker limbs to break out of with brute force alone. "I think Rider-san would be more successful here, what with that piece of glass he palmed while I was screaming."

At this Hakuba glanced briefly at Alex, while the other boy focused his scrutiny on her. Ai forced herself not to react. She had little idea why her captors decided to kidnap Hakuba as well, but she had heard of him both by reputation and from Conan. Given her very limited options, she was relatively willing to trust Hakuba was a dependable ally in their current crisis. This other boy called Alex Rider, on the other hand, was a wild card. He came into that alleyway prepared for trouble, and under the appearance of a normal teenager she recognized the controlled alertness of one who was used to dangerous situations. Given what she had seen of their kidnappers so far, it was unlikely that he was their accomplice on the inside, but the possibility was still there, especially if _they_ were involved. Was she willing to take the chance?

* * *

 

Alex was currently trying to cut his ropes, but it was slow going with the small piece of the broken beer bottle he had taken, and he'd already gotten a few cuts on his hands. Ai shuffled over. All things considered, the balance of probability was that he would be a much greater source of help than threat. "It would be faster if I do it instead," she told him.

He passed over the shard, and Ai took over. Her work was easier due to her hands being tied in the front, but before long those small hands had cuts matching Alex's. She sawed through his knots at only one place in an attempt to preserve the length of the rope for future use, undoing the rest with her fingers. About five minutes later Alex was freed, and another few minutes later everyone had been untied. The three settled down for a council of war, the flashlight held firmly in Ai's hand.

"There's likely at least four or five people involved. Three hostages are a bit too risky to handle with just two men," Hakuba said.

"Those two in front are definitely professional criminals, but they seem to pretty inexperienced with kidnappings in particular," Alex added. "I don't think they would have taken me otherwise." He was still surprised that they had brought him along instead of just leaving him dead or unconscious in the alley.

"...Or, this is the work of some larger organization, and they are simply the deliverymen," Ai said quietly. She saw Alex suddenly tense up in the corner of her eye. She filed the nugget of information away for future consideration, and questioned Hakuba instead. "So, have you pissed off any gangs or criminal organizations lately?"

To Alex's surprise, Hakuba actually seemed to be giving serious consideration to the question. "None in England recently, as far as I am aware of," he replied after a brief pause. "This is the first time I've returned in months."

Alex walked over to the metal door and inspected the lock. He had some lock-picking abilities, but a quick glance was enough to show him that they weren't enough. Barring the use of some sort of battering ram, these doors could only be opened from the outside. _What I would give for some metal-corroding cream or explosive trinket from Smithers right now_ , Alex thought. His companions were both uncannily calm for their situation, especially the little girl who was still watching him warily whenever she thought he wasn't looking, but Alex wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"I think our best chance is when they come to retrieve us. How are you at hand-to-hand combat?" he asked Hakuba.

"Black belt in judo."

"Same in karate." There was a brief flash of satisfaction in Hakuba's face. "We should try to rearrange those ropes so it looks like we're still tied up, then attack once we're outside. Then we'll have space to move, and with some luck with the element of surprise on our side."

Ai shook her head. "Unless they're complete idiots there will be at least one men for each of us, and they will doubtlessly be armed." She didn't need to mention what her chances in a physical fight against a fully grown man would be, armed or not. "And what if one of them decides to cover the rest from a distance away with a gun?"

"If we're close enough together they won't risk shooting their own men. Stay behind the two of us so we can hopefully take out any others before they get to you. And take this." Alex took out the two packets of pepper that he had hidden. They had taken his cell phone, but otherwise only given him a cursory search. Even so, he had been forced to drop the steak knife he had also taken to avoid raising suspicion. He handed the packets to Ai, along with the shard of glass she had used to cut his ropes. "If one of them does get pass us, use the pepper. Aim for the eyes. If he tries to pick you up, bite him or headbutt him in the groin."

Ai took the items wordlessly, but she did not look very reassured. Alex saw the flickers of suppressed fear behind her mask of calm, and how her knuckles were white from clenching the packets. He couldn't blame her for her lack of confidence; the idea of two teenage boys with a little girl in tow taking out fully armed and hostile kidnappers would be ridiculous under normal circumstances. He made his voice softer as the three of them rearranged the ropes. "Ai, Hakuba and I are going to handle the men who come to take us out. You get out of here as soon as you can and hide, got it?"

Ai hesitated, then slowly nodded. "I will try to call for help, if possible."

* * *

 

By the time the lorry came to a stop, the three had refined their plan and finished making preparations. Saguru almost wished they hadn't - the wait for their captors to open the doors was excruciating. It gave his brain far too much time to think of all the ways their plan could go wrong.

In all fairness, it wasn't a very sophisticated plan. It relied on their captors following the trend they had shown when they tied Ai up more loosely than him and Alex: that between two well-built teenage boys and an eight year old girl, they showed the least caution to the small girl.

Alex, on the other hand, was calm. He saw Ai start sniffling as soon as they heard footsteps coming closer, and by the time the metal door of the lorry rolled up she had worked herself into full on sobbing and waterworks. The two men who walked in with guns drawn saw a hysterical little girl in the back corner, with Hakuba unsuccessfully trying to calm her down in Japanese from a few feet away, while Alex was near the other end looking as if he didn't want anything to do with either of them.

The taller of the two men walked towards Ai and Hakuba with an annoyed look on his face, and the other man stayed near Alex. The one near Ai didn't even bother threatening her with his gun: he kept it loosely trained on Hakuba with his right hand while his left reached out and roughly shook her shoulder.

And that was when Ai chose to throw a handful of pepper straight into the man's face.

Alex immediately dropped his ropes and, while the man covering him was distracted, aimed a side kick straight at his solar plenux. It connected, and the man staggered back in pain. Alex didn't give him the chance to aim his gun; he stepped forward and kneed him in the groin, while his left fist punched his gun arm. A quick step back, avoid his attempt to sweep out his legs from underneath and the following punch when that failed, then a hard strike to the neck finished the fight as the man's eyes rolled back and he crumpled to the ground.

Alex quickly made sure the man was unconscious, took his gun, and glanced to the fight still going on in the back of the lorry. Hakuba was grappling with his opponent. While the two teens had been fighting, Ai tied one end of a long piece of rope to their flashlight and tossed it around one of the metal struts supporting the lorry walls at the top. Once that end was secure, she quickly made a slipknot with the other end of the rope. Now as Hakuba's assailant managed to pin him to the ground, she threw the makeshift noose around the man's neck and pulled as hard as she could.

The man immediately forgot Hakuba as his throat constricted, turned, picked Ai up with one arm and slammed her against the walls of the lorry.

Alex rushed forward as Hakuba flipped himself up angrily and threw a straight punch. The man threw himself forward to dodge, but the move pulled Ai's slipknot even tighter against his neck. He stumbled back, straight into both Alex's roundhouses kick and Hakuba's elbow blow. He choked, then lost the fight with unconsciousness.

Alex went to check up on Ai while Hakuba tied up the other man securely. The girl lay worryingly still on the floor at first, but she was breathing steadily, and after a minute her eyes blinked open slowly. She tried to sit up, and winced.

"Are you okay?"

Ai gingerly probed the back of her head. "I have a bump on the back of my head, but I think I managed to avoid getting a concussion. How about you two?"

"Some nasty bruises, but otherwise I'm fine. That went surprisingly well, all things considered," Hakuba said. He threw an uncomfortably keen glance at Alex. "I don't think Alex got so much as a scratch. That was some very impressive fighting, where did you learn that?"

"My uncle had me taking karate lessons since I was six."

Hakuba blinked. "You're an orphan? What happened to your parents?"

Alex was ready to bite out a harsh retort when Ai interrupted. "Can we save the get-to-know-you questions for _after_ we get out of this, please?"

There was an awkward silence, then the three no-longer-captives shared a quick glance before each returned to their predetermined plan. Ai reached into each of their former captors' pockets and retrieved their cell phones, and Alex and Hakuba tied and gagged the men securely.

Ai examined the phones. "Well, we lucked out. Their phones are password protected, but neither of them disabled their emergency call function."

"Well, what's a kidnapper going to do when their house catches on fire?" Alex joked uneasily. It _was_ a stroke of luck, but it was also a rather sloppy thing to do. Actually, the entire kidnapping seems to have been organized by someone with money and intent but not much experience. Taking Alex along with the others was an amateur's mistake; so was letting their guard down around Ai, no matter how small and helpless she seemed. Still, he was hardly going to complain.

The now-open end of the lorry framed a view of one end of an abandoned and rather forlorn parking lot. A barren field separated the lot from a cluster of grey buildings further off. Ai warily poked her head out and looked around. "I see warehouses and abandoned factories. I don't know London at all-any chance one of you could figure out where we are?"

* * *

 

Alex and Hakuba followed Ai outside, keeping a careful eye out for any other kidnappers who may have decided to come check up on his tardy accomplices. Alex took a look at his derelict surroundings, the bare fields with the M4 motorway in the distance, and recognized them with a start.

"I think we're in West London, close to Heathrow Airport," Hakuba said.

"I know where we are," Alex said at almost the same time. They were less than a mile away from the burned remains of the former Elm's Cross Studios, the abandoned film studio Desmond McCain had used. Bemusedly he wondered if there was just something about the area that attracted business of the unsavory sort. He gave Ai the address as the three of them ducked into the nearby shadows formed by close-set warehouse walls.

"Let's go find an actual street corner anyways," Ai said quietly as she punched the numbers for emergency services into the cellphone's touchscreen. "We should get as far away from here as we can."

"Yes, we should..." Hakuba's agreed contemplatively. Ai looked up at him.

"You are _not_ seriously considering investigating."

"One of the men who came to take us out of the lorry was new, so there's at least one more at their base. Why hasn't he even tried to call his comrades to ask what's taking them so long to retrieve a few hostages?"

"So you want to drop in and explain to them yourself? Maybe have a nice chat over tea?"

"No, but I do want to find out why they took us in the first place."

"Can't you leave that to the police? Or do you also think you-"

"Guys," Alex interrupted. "Someone came out."

The other two instantly went quiet. They could hear footsteps now, soft and quick, heading towards the lorry. It's door had faced out into the field and away from where Alex guessed their kidnappers' hideout was, so whoever it was would have to be walking further away from them in order to check on the lorry.

"We need to get away from here," he mouthed. Hakuba nodded.

Suddenly the cellphone that was still in Ai's hand buzzed, and a short text message popped up. Alex took a glance and saw that it was in some sort of Japanese or Chinese script. Nothing he could read. However, he saw Ai's face drain white in sheer terror as she read it. Then-

 _Crack. Crack. Crack_ -the sound of shots split the air. Hakuba automatically pushed Ai down and covered her body with his own. Alex winced in dread, then he heard the sound of a standing body collapsing. Then two more softer, barely audible thuds.

Someone had sniped their kidnappers.


	4. A Mother's Fears

Ai immediately tried to run towards the lorry, but Hakuba and Alex stopped her, and together the two boys more or less dragged her away. Once they were a safe number of streets away she seemed to have recovered from whatever had terrified her, and she calmly dialed the police--though on a different cellphone from the one the text message popped up on.

As she reported their situation in a little-girl-scared voice completely at odds with her now cool demeanor, Alex consulted Hakuba.

"Did you see what that text was?"

Hakuba frowned. "It was English, but spelled phonetically using Japanese katakana."

"And? What did it say?"

" _You will see us soon, cheri._ Or _sherry_ , or _cherie._ Maybe even _Sherri_ or _cherry_ , since the spelling doesn't translate exactly. Whoever sent it used the symbol for _shi_ instead of _chi_ , for some reason. _Shi-e-ri_."

English words, Japanese characters, possible French term of endearment. The text could have been meant for any or all of them, Alex thought.

"The police should be here soon. ETA fifteen minutes." He didn't notice that Ai had finished her call. She looked at him and Hakuba with narrowed eyes. "We should have checked on the truck. We don't even know if those men are still alive or not."

"And be sitting ducks for whoever sniped them?" Alex disagreed.

"The sniper could have taken us out when we were first fighting those men, or later when we stepped outside. Whoever it was let us come all the way out here; I don't think killing us was ever his or her intention."

Alex stared at her. Now that they were out of immediate danger and his adrenaline rush was fading, he was going over everything that had happened to them and finding a lot of unanswered questions. Ai's completely unchildlike behaviour, for one..."What scared you so much about the text message, Ai?"

Ai looked towards the phone with its strange text, currently clutched in Hakuba's hand, then looked away again. "I realized that whoever sent that message must have been watching us then, and could have been watching us all along. That's all."

It was a perfectly plausible explanation, but Alex still had the feeling that she was hiding something.

* * *

Alex found the events after the police arrived and locked down the situation almost numbingly familiar. They moved the three of them back to the police station and took everyone's statements, and Alex even thought he recognized one of the officers who had been present after he used a crane to drop a river barge full of drug dealers onto a conference center. God knows what the man thought of him now.

Ai was quietly waiting for her guardian to finish speaking with the police, politely refusing treats now and again from a few officers who plainly found the little girl adorable. Her head had some bruising from being thrown, but she had managed to avoid getting a concussion. He had seen Hakuba going in for a private talk with the lead detective assigned to their case half an hour ago, and the other teen still hadn't come out yet.

"Alex!" He heard Sabina's voice, and turned to see her rushing towards him, her father following behind her. The next thing he knew she had wrapped him in a crushing embrace. When she finally released him, she scanned him up and down in worry. "Are you okay? Did you get hurt?"

"I'm fine, Sab. Really." He tried to smile back as reassuringly as he could at both Sabina and Edward Pleasure.

Sabina was not convinced. Alex had settled in quietly at their new high school in the United States. In the beginning, Sabina had been afraid that Alex would never recover from the trauma of losing his beloved guardian Jack, but as the months passed the emptiness in his eyes began to recede. He still had eyes that were far too old for his now sixteen years, and he made very few close friends at their new school in what Sabina thought was an attempt to distance himself, but he was--had been-- healing.

Thankfully, Sabina saw that right now his eyes were thoughtful, not haunted or empty like she had feared. She stepped back to give Alex some more room, then took a look around the police station for the first time. "What exactly happened, anyways? Did it have anything to do with, you know, _them_?"

Alex shook his head. He didn't know if she was referring to Scorpia or MI6, but he didn't think either was involved in the kidnapping. Maybe. Probably.

"No, I'm afraid I stumbled into this mess all by myself." He was midway through giving Sabina and her father a quick summary of the events, when he was interrupted by Ai's guardian. This was a portly, kind-looking man in his fifties with a large bald patch on his grey head, round glasses, and the air of an absentminded university professor, who proceeded to thank him profusely in heavily accented English.

"How long are you and Ai staying in London?" Sabina asked, clearly just as charmed by Ai as the officers were.

"Oh, we are not staying in London," the old professor--Dr. Agasa--answered. "We are going to this little town called Lymstock, to visit colleague of mine."

"Lymstock? I've heard it's a lovely area to visit. Very nice for vacations, but rather distracting for work," Edward Pleasure noted. They continued chatting for a few more minutes, then Ai and her guardian thanked Alex one final time before heading out of the police station as a pair.

Sabina watched them leave. "When Dad and I first heard the news, we were terrified," she said. Then she smiled. "But you were right to follow your instincts, Alex. You're a hero."

* * *

When he didn't hear so much as a peep from MI6 about the kidnapping, Alex had thought that would have been the end of the matter. But the next day he got a call from Hakuba's mother, inviting him to 'a quick thanks' at Hakuba Labs the day after.

Dr. Elizabeth Morgan Hakuba was a woman in her forties, elegant and stern in grey business dress. The silver in her pale blonde hair and lines around her blue-grey eyes spoke of a stressful life, but she carried herself with pressed lips and perfect posture, and her handshake was brisk and firm.

She spoke as soon as she sat down. "I cannot tell you how grateful I am for what you did, Mr. Rider-"

"Alex, please, ma'am."

"Alex." She paused briefly, then continued. "I've spoken with Saguru's father, and we both agreed that a monetary reward is-"

"There's no need." Alex interrupted her again. "Really. Hakuba and Ai did just as much as I did, and I only did what anyone would have done in that situation."

Hakuba's mother stared at him briefly, then something about her seemed to soften, and Alex suddenly noticed the dark hollows under her pale eyes.

"I somehow doubt that," she said, and then more quietly:

"I have not been the ideal mother, I know. Too ambitious, too engrossed in the family business and all the duties that entails. But Saguru is my only child, and I almost lost him today. Let me thank you and your parents for that, at least."

"My parents are dead," Alex told her. There was an old ache in his chest, and he suddenly wished this meeting was over already.

"They would have been very proud of you, Alex." She paused, then seemed to be considering something. "If you don't want the money...you've applied to the summer camp that Hakuba Labs run every year, right? Your name was in the database."

"If you let me in now that would practically be nepotism, Mrs. Hakuba," Alex told her wryly. "I was rejected for a reason. My grades sucked."

She took out her smartphone, and seemed to be opening his application to the camp. She raised an eyebrow as she read it through, probably at the sudden drop in his grades, Alex guessed.

"Why? From your handling of the kidnapping situation, you seem to be quite analytical and intelligent."

Her praise, though understandable given the circumstances, made Alex uncomfortable. He recalled all the wild rumours at Brookland his constant absences generated, from gangs to drug dealing, and gave the same false excuse he did then. "I got sick often, so I missed a lot of school."

"But you are interested in the sciences? As a possible career choice."

"Yes. I've considered applying to Oxford and Cambridge for college, if I can raise my average enough by then."

"I see." She seemed to suddenly think of something. "Would you be interested in a summer job?"

"At Hakuba Laboratories?" Alex blinked. Hakuba Labs had extremely strict hiring standards. It would certainly be a fantastic opportunity, but he didn't see how he would be qualified for any interesting technical positions if he couldn't even make it to the summer camp.

"No. Right now all of our summer internships require at least a partial undergraduate's degree, and I can't really make a new position just for you," she said apologetically.

"I was thinking of something more relaxing. Saguru's in high school right now, but he's already studying college material on his own." There was quiet pride in her voice. "What would you think of traveling with him during the summer? He spends about half of his time in Japan, and I think you'd enjoy a visit there. It's a lovely country. All your expenses would be covered, of course, and there'll be a nice bit of compensation for you to use for college funds or whatever you wish. It'll be like going on vacation, but you'll actually be gaining money instead of spending it. Saguru could also tutor you in any subjects you feel like you need more work in. He knows enough that you could probably raise your grades enough to get into the camp next year if you decide to re-apply."

"With all due respect, it sounds rather like I'll be a glorified babysitter."

Hakuba's mother chuckled. "An extremely well paid one. Honestly, Saguru does not make friends easily. He usually barely tolerates other teenagers, and he tries to keep people at a distance. But today's crisis reminded me of his tendency to get into trouble, and I'd feel much better knowing someone with a good head on his shoulders is there to look over him, even if it's just for a summer. Maybe he'll pick up some good sense through osmosis." There was a mixture of fondness, exasperation and worry in her voice. "Call it a mother's unfounded fears. Of course, if you'd prefer a simple reward, that is perfectly fine as well."

Alex thought about it. The job, stripped of its platitudes, actually sounded rather like being a bodyguard and babysitter combined, and his first instinct was to refuse. But then he remembered that he had been planning to look for a summer job anyways, and he was unlikely to find another that was this well paid or well connected on his own. Sabina had found a summer internship at a start-up in San Francisco which she would start working at soon after they returned from their trip, and Alex didn't want to spend his vacation slacking off without her. The chance to visit Japan was rather tempting as well. And despite his mother's worries, Saguru Hakuba seemed to be quite intelligent and fully capable of taking care of himself, even if he seemed a bit arrogant.

Alex probably wouldn't have to do anything except travel with him-- after all, Hakuba was unlikely to be anywhere near as big a trouble magnet as Alex himself was. Yet there was a part of him which still thirsted for the adrenaline and excitement of his missions, the part which had lain dormant during his time in America, and this part was now clamoring for this chance at possible adventure.

He looked into Elizabeth Hakuba's worried eyes, and realized that his decision had been made the moment he decided to follow the suspicious man who trailed Saguru Hakuba out of that pub. "I'll take the job."


	5. Honesty

Saguru Hakuba had spent nearly all of the few days since the kidnapping investigating. The London police had almost immediately identified their kidnappers, who turned out to be small time criminals known for being willing to any sort of dirty work for large sums of cash with very little questions asked. Unfortunately, it appeared most of their fees were for discretion, as a thorough search of the kidnappers' hideouts and homes revealed nothing about who had hired them. There were no clues about who had paid for the kidnapping.

Nor was there anything left to identify the sniper. Whoever had sent the text message had somehow managed to steal the cellphone of the third kidnapper and use that. Saguru suspected that whoever hired their kidnappers decided to pull a double cross, though he didn't know if that person was the sniper as well. All they knew was that whoever the sniper was, he (or she) was a fantastic shot.

 _Whoever was behind this never wanted to harm us_ , he thought. _They wanted to send a message. But to whom?_

With that in mind, he started looking into his two fellow kidnappees, both of whom were mysteries onto their own. The older man who had picked Ai up was a Dr. Hiroshi Agasa, a great-uncle who had taken her in after her parents died. Apparently they were in England to visit a biochemist colleague of Dr. Agasa's. Given that both were Japanese citizens visiting Britain, that was all he could learn at the moment, though he also planned on contacting Edogawa Conan later to ask if she really was a classmate of his, and if so, why their elementary school seemed to collect unnervingly precocious children.

Alex Rider, on the other hand, was much easier to find information on. Saguru dug up the application Alex had submitted to Hakuba Labs' summer camp and worked from there. By the time his mother came in at breakfast the next morning to talk to him, he had already reached some very interesting conclusions of his own.

And when his mother told him of the arrangements for Alex to travel with him during the summer, he realized that he wasn't the only one who had.

Saguru looked at his mother as she elegantly sipped her cup of black coffee after she had finished talking, pearls around her neck and not a hair out of place. He needed to handle this carefully.

"So, why exactly did you decide to hire a teenage spy as my babysitter?" ...Maybe his 'being careful' needed some work.

"Former teenage spy, to be accurate. Apparently he's retired his services from MI6," his mother corrected. She set down her coffee cup. "Two days, not bad. I expected you to take a while longer to figure it out. You started by looking at his camp application, I assume?"

No denial. He made sure his voice was calm when he answered. Anger would get him nowhere against his mother. "I had the advantage of seeing him in action. It made the idea a lot less unbelievable. But you didn't answer my question."

"Because it appears you need one." She forestalled his arguments with a raised hand. "Saguru, you didn't even tell me about the assassin at the Kaitou KID heist two months ago. I had to find out from your father."

"He was after KID, not me." It was a feeble counter, and they both knew it. He always tried to downplay the more dangerous aspects of his calling to his mother, partly out of the desire to not make her worry, partly out of the knowledge that it would make her disapprove even more than she already did. "Personal danger is an unavoidable aspect of my job, all one can do is stay alert and take precautions. It doesn't stop Father from being the Tokyo Police Superintendent; it shouldn't stop me."

"And this is a precaution," she replied. Her voice maintained its cool, even cadence, but her eyes flashed. "I'm serious, Saguru. It's either this or trained bodyguards."

He really didn't want bodyguards tagging along with him all the time, but the notion that his mother considered Alex Rider an equivalent or better replacement was suggestive. "You found out more details about what exactly Alex has done. Government contacts?" He knew that Hakuba Labs had certain deals with MI5 and MI6 regarding breaking-edge research and equipment.

"I called in some favours, that's all. Quid pro quo." She spoke no more on the subject, and Hakuba knew no more information was forthcoming. The rest of the meal was filled with polite talk about his schoolwork, and a new data mining software the Labs was developing.

As soon as he was done eating, Saguru looked up the address of the hotel Alex was registered as staying at from the police report and headed outside. Though he was sure the teen would refuse this job once he found out exactly how much he and his mother knew, Alex Rider deserved full disclosure in something like this.

* * *

Saguru had intended to reveal what he knew to Alex in as private and polite a manner as the situation allowed. The former was achieved almost effortlessly. Edward Pleasure was out conducting business, and after Saguru announced that he was here to talk to Alex, Sabina left their hotel suite to go shopping with a jaunty wave and a whispered "ten out of twenty" to Alex which Saguru took to be some kind of inside joke. The latter Saguru was still trying to figure out how to do.

Alex's manner was not friendly, exactly, but it was relaxed in a way markedly different from the coiled tenseness Saguru remembered during their kidnapping. "Are we leaving for Japan already? I was hoping to get a chance to learn the language first," he joked.

An awkward pause ensued as Saguru— rather belatedly— realized that there was really no polite way to tell someone that you and your mother dug up their past as a former teenage spy. He sighed.

"There's something you need to know."

"Yes?"

"My mother had you investigated. She found out your past as a secret agent for MI6, and that's why she tried to hire you." There, the truth, plain and unvarnished. The one thing he could never flinch from dealing in.

Alex's relaxed manner suddenly gained a deliberate edge. He stared at Saguru with dark eyes void of all warmth. His voice when it came was deceptively mild. "Who else knows, now? How many others has she told?"

"No one else. My mother knows the value of discretion, if nothing else."

"She told you!"

"Only as confirmation! I'd already deduced most of it on my own."

That surprised Alex, but only for a few seconds. "Because of the way I fought those men?"

"Before that, actually. When you first stepped into the pub," Saguru said.

" _What._ "

"The billiards table I was playing at faced the doors. You scanned the room automatically when you entered: exit routes, suspicious personages, you even looked up at the ceiling, which very few people do." He only knew one other person their age who spot checked every room he walked into so nonchalantly, and that resemblance alone had been enough to catch his interest. "I actually thought you were a criminal at first, but then you risked your life to help me and Haibara."

"You know, I would be flattered by the attention, but..."

"Oh, sod it. One of the officers I talked to at the precinct mentioned something about recognizing you, something involving dropping a river barge of drug dealers onto a police conference?" Alex blinked, and looked almost embarrassed. "The incident was reported in the newspapers, but there was no mention of a fourteen year old being responsible. And when I looked you up in the police database, there was a bold red sentence in your file declaring that you had special status, contact SIS for details. The attempt at confidentiality, combined with your fighting abilities and your absences from school...MI6 should have gotten less reputable doctors for your sick notes. One could have been bribed or in cahoots with you, but that many, all of stellar reputations points to collusion on a very high level."

"How did you know about my absences—" Alex began to ask, then answered his own question. "...the summer camp application."

"Yes." He and his mother had taken rather liberal advantage of Alex's agreement to allow the Labs to 'collect further information to determine fit for this or other programs', as the check-box on the application had stated.

"And your access to the police database was equally 'legal'?"

"A bit more, actually." Saguru smiled slightly.

"You see, I'm a detective."

* * *

Alex stared at Hakuba. "Like Sherlock Holmes?"

The other teen actually looked rather flattered. "I do try..." His voice tapered off as he realized that Alex was staring at him not with admiration but a combination of wariness and something akin to horror.

"What are you going to do now?" Alex asked, carefully keeping his voice steady. He remembered Harry Bulman, the journalist who had discovered his past as a spy and wanted to expose it to the media for his own profit. He had been forced to go to MI6 to prevent that from happening; the entire thing had not ended well for either Bulman or himself. His new life with the Pleasures had been going so well in America, and now it was all in danger again, and from some rich boy who didn't know how to keep his nose out of other people's business to boot!

"Well, I just got a call from a colleague with this rather interesting case, down in this town in the Lake District called Lymstock, and..."

"No," Alex interrupted through gritted teeth. "What are you and your mother going to do with your knowledge of my past?"

Hakuba looked confused. "What do you mean what are we going to do? I don't imagine my mother will go around telling everyone about it, if that's what you're worried about. Why would we?"

"And you just came to tell me all this out of the goodness of your heart?" Alex asked in flat disbelief.

"Well, I wanted confirmation of my deductions," Hakuba admitted. "Also, my mother tried to hire you because of your background, without telling you she knew. That's not fair to you, to be unknowingly manipulated into being my babysitter with the knowledge of your past."

Alex continued to stare at him in disbelief and suspicion. Almost everyone who knew of his abilities had either tried to kill him or manipulate him for their own ends. It didn't surprise him too much to discover that Hakuba's mother had also tried to use him once she knew, but Hakuba's forthrightness was throwing Alex for a loop. Either he was a fantastic actor, or he actually meant what he said and didn't intend to do anything with his knowledge.

"So if I wanted to get out of this job, what would happen?"

"Nothing. Well, if you've already signed a contract there might be some trouble with my mother—her lawyers are even more devious and truth-twisting than she is—but I would talk to her, and she already planned to give me bodyguards if you refused, so I don't think she would be too put out."

Alex considered everything Hakuba had said. "Wait, did you say you were going to someplace called Lymstock? Isn't that where Ai said she was visiting as well?"

"It is. If the case doesn't take up all my time, I might try to talk to her again."

"So now that you've solved the mystery of my past, you're going to go poke around in hers?"

Hakuba snorted. "Come on, don't tell me you're not interested in finding out what's up with her. The police hit a dead end on investigating our kidnapping, but I have a hunch Haibara knows more than she's letting on."

Alex thought it through. Even if Hakuba was being honest, he didn't know if his mother really would let it go if he refused. He could fend for himself, but he would do anything to keep Sabina and the Pleasures away from the messes that he always seemed to be dragged into. And after finally escaping MI6's hold after all they had put him through, he would rather be damned than go to them for help. He made up his mind: all things considered, it was safest to just go along with their plans for now. He would wait, and watch, and gather more information about this potential threat.

"Fine. I'll go with you to Lymstock. Oh, and tell your mother I want a bloody raise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I originally didn't plan for this chapter to exist, intending the main case to start right after the previous chapter, but then I realized 1) the chances of Hakuba leaving an intriguing mystery uninvestigated is pretty much zero, and 2) Alex's status as a teen superspy is one of the worst kept secrets of the intelligence community.
> 
> Chapters may take longer to update going forward, as I'm trying to make the mystery as fair-play and plot hole free as possible. Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr now have (even more) of my respect, for making it look so easy.


	6. The Mansfield Case

Alex Rider stepped out of the car into the sunlit street, and felt as if he had walked into a different time.

Lymstock was a sleepy town in the North of England which the twenty-first century seemed to have passed by with barely a glance. He was on the main road, where brick houses with bright flowerbeds faced the street and quaint stores hung painted signs over their doorways. People milled about, leisurely enjoying the beautiful summer day. Alex felt like he was in one of those period dramas shown on the BBC, only with more sunglasses and less top hats. It was the kind of village where even the local police station had the cozy atmosphere of a tea shop.

Lymstock was situated in a still unspoiled part of England close to several national parks, an area of lakes and wilderness that made it a popular vacation spot for tourists and source of inspiration for artists. Hakuba and Alex booked two rooms at a small bed and breakfast close to the centre of town. Since they had settled in and unpacked shortly after 1pm, Hakuba decided to have lunch outside on the patio with the colleague - a certain Dr. Souda Ikumi - who asked him for help on the case.

Dr. Souda was an elegant brunette in her late twenties or very early thirties, dressed for business in a navy and white dress with a double strand of pearls around her neck. Alex liked her immediately; she was clearly very intelligent, and she didn't question Alex's age or presence at the table at all, which was a rather refreshing change. As the three of them ate their lunch, she kept the conversation flowing smoothly by telling Alex about how she had first met Hakuba while on a case in Japan. Alex noted that it was also the same case where the two of them had first met Edogawa Conan, the boy whose name Ai had mentioned back in the truck.

"Wait, you named your pet hawk Watson?" he asked Hakuba in amusement.

"I highly enjoy Sherlock Holmes," Hakuba answered stiffly. Dr. Souda laughed.

"You should have seen his manners at the Sunset Mansion. Every inch the proper Victorian English gentleman — even while he was holding me at gunpoint." She chuckled at the look on Alex's face as he tried not to spit out his mouthful of omelet, and finished telling the tale. To Alex it all sounded rather fantastical: murder, hidden treasure, and a gathering of detectives with a phantom thief hidden amongst them. Then again, he thought wryly, if he was ever able to write down his missions it would probably sound even more unbelievable.

After they were all done their meals Dr. Souda's persona suddenly became more businesslike. As they slowly sipped their teas she finally broached the reason they were all here.

"All the information the police and I know are in the files here," she said as she pulled out a large manila envelope and gave it to Hakuba. "It's a pity I can't stay to work on this case — it has some rather intriguing features. I have a few theories already."

"Why couldn't you stay?" Hakuba asked.

"A previous commitment came up suddenly, so I have to leave to take care of it. I'm afraid I can't say more due to confidentiality issues, but it will probably take me at least a few weeks and that's far too long to leave this alone for. But I couldn't just leave the Mansfields in the lurch like this, so when I heard you were back in England, I recommended you to take over on this case."

"Hakuba said it was something to do with a poisoning?" Alex prompted. The other teen hadn't given him many details. He wondered how much Hakuba himself actually knew about the case.

"Yes. I'll give you a summary right now; there are more details are in the files I gave you, along with contact information for the local police sergeant and everyone who's involved." She took a brief pause, then began to speak, clearly and carefully.

* * *

"Nine days ago the Mansfield family who vacation in Lymstock every summer decided to hold a small cocktail party at their summer cottage. The family is composed of four members: Oliver Mansfield, a don at Oxford, his wife Camille, and their two daughters Amelia and Elaine. Oliver and Camille like to hold small gatherings of friends and acquaintances to discuss art and recent events — both are intellectuals with a fondness for art and literature. I've been to one of them in the past to discuss detective fiction and enjoyed the evening very much, and when Camille invited me again I agreed instantly. Unfortunately, my flight was delayed, so I didn't arrive in Lymstock until around 11pm the evening of the party, and by then it was too late."

"There were a total of seven people present at the party." Dr. Souda ticked them off one by one. "The host and hostess, Oliver Mansfield and Camille Mansfield. Their eldest daughter Amelia, just back on vacation from her university studies in America. And the guests. The actor and biochemist Simon Perreal. The artist Catherine Renfrew, who's known to be somewhat of a recluse but who Camille somehow managed to convince to come. William Carmichael, who's retired with a fortune from his manufacturing business, along with his soon-to-be daughter-in-law Andrea Beckley. Beckley's been engaged to Carmicheal's son Joshua for about a year now. The Mansfields also have a distant cousin around Elaine's age who is staying over for a visit, but the two of them went to the movies and then clubbing, so neither were at the party."

"It took until 6:30pm for all the guests to arrive, and everyone had some cocktails and hors d'oeurvres before dinner. Afterwards there was more alcohol and dessert, and all was going well until around 9:20pm when Amelia started showing signs of having difficulty breathing. She suddenly lost consciousness, and passed away at around 9:43pm after unsuccessful attempts to revive her."

"Poison?"

"Yes. The cause of death was established to be poisoning through ingested atropine, which can be extracted from the nightshade or belladonna plant. Based on the amount present and the timing, the coroner think the ingestion almost definitely occurred after dinner. After they analyzed everything Amelia Mansfield ate and drank, they found the traces of atropine in the glass of wine she had with dessert."

Hakuba frowned. "So what are the strange features you were talking about? You don't usually see atropine used in poisonings—it's usually arsenic or cyanide, but otherwise it sounds like a rather straightforward case so far."

Dr. Souda idly tapped her teacup. "There's nothing outright impossible in this case, but there are some circumstances that are quite peculiar."

"The biggest stumbling block that the investigators have run into so far is that we can't figure out definitively when and how the poison could have been introduced into Amelia's glass. There were no traces of atropine in the wine bottle or anyone else's glass, or in the decanter. William Carmichael opened and decanted the wine—he's a noted oenophile, he actually has his own little vineyard in Bordeaux, and the white wine was a bottle he corked a few years ago there. He left the bottle open on the table, and everyone who came up poured their own glass—including Amelia."

"And after that there was no possible way to tamper with Amelia's glass; she held it in full view of everyone until she drank, and everyone agrees that no one could have dropped anything in it during that time."

Hakuba frowned. "They're positive about that?"

"Yes. She stood and chatted with Simon Perreal and Catherine Renfrew, but not close enough for either of them to tamper with her drink without someone noticing."

"Couldn't her glass could have been poisoned _before_ the wine was poured into it?" Hakuba asked after a short pause. Dr. Souda smiled.

"I considered that. No one said they noticed anything unusual about any of the glasses, but if the poison was in liquid form, a small amount left at the bottom would be nearly undetectable. But then we have a problem."

"How could the murderer ensure the poisoned glass went to the right person? All the wineglasses look identical, and they were laid out in a group, not neatly in a row. Even if they had been, everyone went up and picked a glass at random."

"You see the difficulty? It's not physically impossible for someone to have tampered with Amelia's wineglass, but from a practical perspective, there is no way the poisoner could guarantee that Amelia and not someone else would pick that exact glass."

"What about motive?"

"That's pretty bare on the ground too. Amelia Mansfield hasn't even been in England in the past eight months; she was studying for her Economics degree in the United States. What's more, as far as we can tell she'd never even met any of the other guests at the party before."

"Maybe it wasn't someone at the party?" Alex suggested. "The poisoner could have used some sort of time-delayed device or mechanism somehow." He remembered the gold-coated cyanide nanoparticles that Scorpia had planned to remotely and undetectably kill London's children with. But the only people at the party who potentially had the money to come up with something like that was Carmichael and maybe Perreal, and neither had cause to use such a complicated method on a girl who was a complete stranger to them.

"You have considered suicide, right?" Hakuba asked.

Dr. Souda nodded. "We have. Amelia Mansfield had no reason to commit suicide; from all accounts she was a bright, personable young woman who was doing well in school. No history or indications of depression, no family issues. One rather unpleasant breakup with a boyfriend before she left for university, but she was the one who broke it off and to all appearances was glad to do so."

"Maybe she took it hard and pretended to be happy. Or there could have been something you overlooked in her past."

"Possibly. There's another problem with the suicide theory though. Amelia didn't leave the living room from the time she picked up her glass of wine to the time she died. We couldn't find a container to hold the liquid atropine—and it had to be a liquid—anywhere on or near her. We canvassed the entire lower floor and couldn't find anything."

"And if she had decided to kill herself, it would have been nearby," Hakuba finished the thought for her. "Actually, no matter who did the poisoning, they must have used a vial or some sort of container to store the poison. What do you think happened to it?"

"Probably disposed of it in the panic after Amelia collapsed. Their cottage is right on the shore of a small lake, with the woods nearby. The police made sure no one left after they realized it was unlikely to be suicide, and after I got there I persuaded them to search everyone, but we didn't find anything."

"So who do the police suspect right now?" Alex asked.

"Aside from all the guests? Inspector Graves—he's the official in charge of this case—is also looking into Christian Auster, Amelia's ex. He's really the only person with a clear motive to kill Amelia."

"But he wasn't at the party."

"Definitely not. But the thing with poison is that you don't have to be present at the kill as long as you've set up something beforehand. Graves thinks that given we don't know how Amelia was poisoned, it doesn't hurt to look into the movements of the only person with anything resembling a motive. Auster's been rather uncooperative so far, though."

"So the only person who has a motive to kill Amelia Mansfield had no opportunity to do so, and none of the people who had the opportunity to poison her have any motive to do so," Hakuba mused aloud. "Motive vs. opportunity. Rather interesting."

* * *

Alex listened to Dr. Souda and Hakuba discuss the rather morbid details of the case as the three of them continued to enjoy the bright afternoon sunshine on the patio. Lymstock may look like a quaint and picturesque little town, he thought, but there was still ugliness and evil, even here. He was not sure if he liked the clinical and rather detached way Hakuba was talking about the case; he supposed it was professional, but Hakuba was treating the death of a young woman like a puzzle to be solved.

Once they were done their lunch Dr. Souda walked with them to the police station. "Me handing the case off to someone new is bad enough," she had explained. "Giving it to someone so young...the London police may know you, Hakuba, but I would rather be the one to explain things to Inspector Graves before you two have the inevitable argument about inexperience and nepotism."

Inspector Graves, in contrast to his name, was a jovial man in his late-forties with warm but perceptive hazel eyes, a high forehead and a rather beaky nose set over a neatly trimmed mustache. He raised his graying eyebrows in mild skepticism when the three of them first entered the cozy police station, but by the end of their explanation he seemed to be willing to give Hakuba and Alex (who seemed to have somehow been classified as Hakuba's partner-in-solving-crime) a chance. Alex mentally gave part of the credit to Hakuba's serious demeanor and self-confidence, and the rest to Dr. Souda's smooth verbal support which prevented said confidence from coming off as blatant arrogance.

"Well, I reckon you have one good chance to prove yourself on this case before the inspector kicks you off of it," Alex said once they made their goodbyes to Dr. Souda and returned to their rooms at the small hotel. "Is that why you always dress so formally, to make yourself look older so they take you more seriously?"

"Partly," Hakuba answered, then shot back: "It would be different from being a teenage secret agent, wouldn't it, where being underestimated because of your age is your greatest advantage."

Alex sighed. "If that's your attempt to get me to reveal something about what I did it won't work. Exactly how curious are you?"

"Very," Hakuba admitted. "My mother didn't tell me much more than I deduced myself, and I haven't been able to pick up details from elsewhere."

Well, that was a relief at least. Still, it sounded like Hakuba would keep on poking at it until he had the whole sordid tale. "Haven't you ever heard the saying about curiosity killing the cat?"

"I'm a detective, Alex. Curiosity is a necessary requirement of the job."

"Well, I'm glad to see you take your job so seriously," Alex said sarcastically. Now came the test. "Still, just so we're clear: I am fine with you investigating murders and kidnappings and whatever, but my past is my own to reveal. I am not a criminal, stop invading my privacy as if I was."

Hakuba didn't look pleased. "And you're sure that your past has absolutely nothing to do with why we were kidnapped?"

"Almost entirely. Look, I didn't even know I was going to eat lunch at that pub until I walked past it. If I hadn't eaten there, or if I hadn't noticed that man following you or decided not to do anything about it, it would have just been you and Ai in that truck." That gave Hakuba some food for thought.

"Fair enough. I'll stop looking for more information about your missions," Hakuba finally conceded. "Just a warning though: if you want to keep your secret, tell MI6 to hide it better." He thought of Edogawa Conan, and his annoying but admittedly perceptive friend Hattori. "If I can find it out, there are several others who can deduce it just as easily. And those are just the benevolent ones."

"Noted."

With that brusque reply, the conversation seemed to be finished. Hakuba poured the contents of the file Dr. Souda had given him onto the coffee table, made himself comfortable, and started working on the mystery he _was_ allowed to solved. No spies, no snipers, just an impossible poisoning with no good suspects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And there's the main mystery for this story! The names of Lymstock and Inspector Graves are homages to Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger.


	7. Familiar Faces

While Hakuba grabbed the section of the files containing the crime scene and toxicology reports and began perusing them, Alex looked through the few loose photographs in the files out out of curiosity. The first he picked showed a grinning young woman in a University of Pennsylvania pullover and jeans, with wind-blown, shoulder length copper hair and grey eyes crinkled in laughter. Amelia Mansfield. Standing in front of the university quad, she could have been any college girl laughing and living in the world. The next few photographs were of her still corpse.

Alex left the photos on the coffee table, changed to gym clothes and headed out, getting a distracted nod from Hakuba when he told him he was going to explore. He jogged, all the way from one end of the town's main road to the other. By the time he was done he was sweating and short of breath, and the forensic photos of Amelia's body still flashed clearly in his mind, clinical and taken from multiple angles.

Maybe this was why Hakuba chose to look at the toxicology reports instead, Alex thought wryly.

He collected himself. Hakuba was the one who was here to solve a murder; he was paid just to tag along. He could try and help the investigation—and he planned to, but unlike his missions there was no obligation to endanger his physical or mental well being. With that justification in mind, he popped into a nearby cafe. After the heat and physical exertion the ice cream milkshake he ordered was pure chilly bliss. The female server was cheerful and easily drawn to gossip, which was a bonus. Once he gathered a reasonable amount of minutiae about the town and some of its inhabitants, he left to explore, returning to the hotel several hours later.

"...Did you even move while I was gone?" Hakuba was still on the couch looking through documents.

Hakuba glanced pointedly at his laptop on the table; it hadn't been there when Alex had left. The screen displayed a webpage with information about atropine poisoning.

"I meant from the room. Unless you're aiming to be a literal armchair detective."

"I'm going to talk to the Mansfields and the suspects starting tomorrow, but I want to get fully up to date first."

Alex checked his watch. "It's almost time for supper. I'm going to shower and change, and then we're heading out for food, somewhere where the surfaces aren't covered with crime scene reports." He brightened. "And I know just the place."

* * *

"You brought me to a _nightclub_?!"

"It's a mixed restaurant/bar/club, actually," Alex corrected cheerfully. "One of the locals I met recommended it. It's supposed to be very popular among the younger crowd. Nice change of setting from the hotel, right?"

"...I hate you."

* * *

The club's dance floor was filled with a number of teens and adults in their early-to-mid twenties, cheerfully partying away, but Saguru seemed oblivious to the activity all around him. He ate the food he ordered almost mechanically, and Alex didn't need to be a detective to see that he was still completely fixated on the case.

"Relax," Alex said to Hakuba, forced to talk louder to be heard above the pounding dance music. By this point, he was pretty sure the other teen could sketch the crime scene layout from memory for him if he'd asked.

The older boy snapped out of his reverie, then shook his head. "I'm missing something. It's right at the edge of my mind - there's something I'm not seeing."

"Those kind of things tend to sneak up on you when you're least expecting it," Alex advised. "Give your mind a break. Or talk to some of the locals? Maybe one of them knows something." _You know it's bad when the spy who hates crowded places is trying to get you to loosen up_ , he thought. He didn't like the dimness or the number of strangers surrounding him, and he much preferred moving around in this environment than just sitting there with his back to half the room.

Hakuba seemed to finally notice their surroundings and the partying going on around them. "Socializing in this manner... is not my preferred activity." Nevertheless, he began to scan the room for anyone who looked as if they would run in the younger Mansfield's social circles, glancing distastefully at a nearby teenage couple who were enthusiastically snogging. Then his gaze passed over a model-pretty redhead in a rather revealing dress who had just left the dance floor, to the obvious disappointment of several guys. His eyes widened in surprised recognition.

"What in kami's name is _she_ doing here?"

Hakuba quickly left their table, making straight for the girl. Alex followed.

The girl seemed to sense them somehow, and turned to face Hakuba as he approached. Alex noted that there was recognition but no surprise in her gaze. She was the third Eurasian under twenty years old he'd seen this week. Dark brown eyes and delicate bone structure gave away her Asian ancestry, though her (seemingly natural) dark red hair and pale skin tone pointed to Caucasian blood as well. Alex guessed that she was a year or two older than he was — around Hakuba's age. The casual confidence in the way she held herself reminded Alex of the so called "it" girls back at his high school; she was extremely attractive, and obviously knew it.

"Koizumi-san. Aren't you supposed to be in Ekoda?" Hakuba asked her in Japanese. Then he remembered Alex, and switched back to English. "Alex, this is Akako Koizumi, a fellow classmate back at my high school in Japan. Koizumi-san, Alex Rider. He's accompanying me for the summer."

The girl gave Alex a quick but appreciative look-over, then languidly shook hands. "It is good to meet you, Rider-san." Her English was smooth, but there was a definite Japanese accent. Oddly, her voice sounded like a darker, richer version of Ai's. "There was an opportunity for a short exchange program, and I took the chance to visit some distant relations. I _am_ supposed to be back at school by now, but given recent events I thought it better to stay a little longer." She turned her gaze back onto Hakuba. "You would know more about that, tantei-san. I'll be back in time for exams though." Saguru quickly put together the pieces.

"You're the distant cousin the Mansfields were hosting?" She nodded.

"Excellent. Would you mind accompanying us to somewhere quieter, Koizumi-san? There are some questions I want to ask about the case."

Alex almost snorted. Only Hakuba, he thought, would try to get a pretty girl to leave a bar with him so that he could interrogate her about a murder. Akako didn't seemed surprised though. She followed them out of the bar and to an empty bench in the park nearby. The sun had set while they were in the club, but a nearby streetlamp provided enough light to see by. Hakuba started the questions as soon as she sat down.

* * *

"You weren't there at the cocktail party."

"No, I was with Ellie - Elaine-chan that night. Here, actually. She wanted to show me... 'a night out on the town', I believe is the term?" Her lips twisted up in amusement.

"As if you weren't already familiar with the concept?" Saguru doubted it, given the gaggle of boys which followed her about back at school. "Why did you come back tonight then?"

"Other than the fact that it is the only somewhat decent dance place in this little town?" Her amusement faded into seriousness. "I came to look for someone." Her fingers traced the hem of her black dress. "Christian Auster."

"Amelia's ex? How did you know he'd be here?"

"Apparently he's been here more and more often since his breakup with Amelia. We saw him here briefly that night, actually. So I came back to ask around if anyone could remember seeing him during...the relevant period of time."

"And did anyone?" Hakuba was surprised the police hadn't turned up any good information here already, but then Souda had mentioned Auster was being uncooperative, and the types of people who frequented these clubs tended to be much more willing to talk to a pretty girl than an uniformed officer.

"This one guy I danced with apparently saw him drinking at another bar with a girl around 9:30pm on that night," Akako said with a frown. "I don't know, from what I heard Auster did take the break-up badly at first, but he seemed to have gotten over it for a few months now."

"Could you find that guy again if we asked?"

"Yes, I think so."

If she was right, that would remove their only plausible suspect from the list. Saguru pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Then he looked up at her again as a new question occurred. "Exactly how close were you to Amelia, Koizumi-san?"

She blinked at the change of topic. "Not very. We've only met a few times at family gatherings before this week. We saw more of each other living in the same house the past few days, of course, but she was out catching up with her friends a lot of time and I mostly hung out with Elaine-chan."

"It's just, you've gone to some trouble for this, I suppose," Hakuba said haltingly. What he had meant was that Akako's rather serious demeanor surprised him, being used to her flirtatious and confident nature back at school. But then he realized she could have found that remark potentially offensive. A girl she had been living with had died, after all.

"Blood is blood," Akako answered simply, as if that explained everything. To her, maybe it did.

There was a pause as Saguru hurriedly tried to think of something else to ask her, but Akako broke the silence first. "Why haven't you visited the Mansfields yet, Hakuba-san? When I heard you took over the case I expected you to come talk to us soon." She tilted her head slightly. "Come to think of it, why were you so surprised to see me? The inspector should have told you they had a foreigner staying over."

"He's spent all of his time in the hotel room with his nose in the forensic files," Alex cut in before Hakuba could speak. Hakuba's ears turned slightly pink, and he glared at Alex.

"I was researching the suspects," he said stiffly.

Akako didn't bother hiding her smirk. "Come visit us tomorrow then. The Mansfields and I moved to a hotel, since the police didn't want us to mess up the cottage living room."

"We will. Alex and I should head back now." He nodded to Alex and they all turned to go. "Thank you for your time, Koizumi-san. If you came here alone, let us take you back to—"

The rest of his words were lost as Akako's arm suddenly shot out and grabbed his shoulder, bringing him to a complete stop. "Koizumi-san, what—"

Akako wasn't looking at him but somewhere on the ground in front of him. The dim yellow light picked out the details of her profile in relief against the darkness. Her hand stayed on his shoulder; its warmth in the cool evening was rather distracting. Saguru followed her line of sight and saw a long slender shape slither away through the grass. A snake, right in his path and nearly invisible in the shadows.

"You should watch your step more carefully, tantei-san. The woods here have vipers. You could have stepped right on the poor thing."

"You're not scared of snakes?" Alex asked, surprised at her words.

"No. I think they get...what is the phrase, 'a bad rep'. They eat pests and vermin, and normally won't attack unless provoked." Akako smiled, thin and sharp. "Actually, I rather like them."

* * *

"So that was your classmate from Japan," Alex said once they had returned to their hotel after dropping Akako safely off at hers. "Pretty hot, but a bit strange. Do you think she's telling the truth?"

"About Christian Auster? Probably. She has no reason to lie, and we can double-check with the other bar regulars now that we know what to ask." Saguru paused in thought. "Koizumi-san and Elaine Mansfield were each other's alibis for the night of the murder, but as Dr. Souda said, if there was some trick with the poison that's useless."

"You think she could have killed Amelia?" Alex was not convinced. "I know she looks and dresses like a film noir femme fatale in training, but why would she kill a cousin she barely ever sees?"

"Blackmail? Jealousy?" Saguru threw out. "And I didn't single out Koizumi. If there _was_ a trick she, Auster and Elaine Mansfield are all back in the pool of suspects." He saw Alex's continued look of skepticism. "Well, they do say poison is a woman's weapon. And being someone's sister or an attractive girl does not prevent one from being a killer." _I learned that the hard way_ , he thought.

He found the Mansfields' phone numbers on a sheet with the contact information of all the guests from the fateful party. One of the names and numbers suddenly reminded him of something he'd researched.

"Alex, Haibara said her guardian came to Lymstock to visit a biochemist colleague, right?"

"I think so, yeah." Alex was surprised at the sudden non-sequitur. "Why?"

"And if Dr. Agasa actually came all the way from Japan for this purpose, it would probably be someone relatively important, or doing current research, right?"

"Well, it could just be an old friend. Lymstock is a known vacation spot, and he did bring Ai along."

"True. Still-" he looked down at the sheet again, "one of our suspects is Simon Perreal, who aside from his acting, is known for his research in cellular biochemistry and enzymology. Most of which is conducted at his own lab, in his house. In Lymstock."

Alex breathed out slowly, having caught on to his train of thought. "What are the chances there are two biochemists in a town of this size?"

"Let's find out." Hakuba dialed Perreal's number from the list.

"Hello, is this Mr. Simon Perreal's residence?... Hello, Mr. Perreal, I'm Saguru Hakuba...Inspector Graves may have mentioned me, I'm helping him with the Mansfield investigation...no, there's no trouble, I just wanted to know, has a Dr. Hiroshi Agasa from Japan planned to visit you?...Oh?...I see, yes, that would be great, -actually, could I speak to Ai Haibara? ...Yes...Yes...Thank you." He lowered his cell phone, covering its mike with his thumb, and smiled thinly at Alex. "Three guesses who's staying over at Perreal's house right now, and the first two don't count."

"You're kidding me."

"Nope. Apparently, Perreal wouldn't hear of Dr. Agasa cabbing back and forth from a hotel to his lab—his house is a bit out of the way, and it's pretty big— so the professor and Haibara are being put up there." He removed his thumb, and put the phone on speaker mode. Ai's voice came out clearly, quiet and a little hesitant.

"...Hakuba-san? I thought you were in London."

"Hello, Haibara-kun, I've put you on speaker. I came to Lymstock for a case. Alex came with me as well."

"Hello to you as well, then, Alex-san." There was an unspoken inquiry in her polite tone. Alex took over explaining.

"Good to hear you, Ai. Hakuba's here to investigate a poisoning case in Lymstock. We called because we found out your host Simon Perreal is one of the suspects. Has he mentioned anything to you or your guardian?"

There was a short pause. "Give me your number, I am going to switch phones." She hung up, and half a minute later Hakuba received a call from Ai's cell phone. "He mentioned something about being involved in a police investigation, yes, but he said they would only be dealing with him and won't be a bother to us," came Ai's reply. "Are you allowed to tell me anything about the case, Hakuba-san?"

"As long as you keep it to yourself, and maybe Dr. Agasa." Saguru gave her a brief summary of the case.

"...Atropine. Interesting," Ai mused thoughtfully.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to stay in that house, Ai?" Alex asked. "If Perreal is a suspect, it may be safer to move to a hotel."

"Even if he is, Agasa-hakase and I are no threat, and as far as he knows we don't know anything about the case. I'll tell him we met in London and you called to reconnect."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Her voice was like marble, cool and inflexible. "The research is very important. And if he is innocent, it would be terribly offensive to our host."

"But—"

"I've spent a significant amount of time with Edogawa Conan, Hakuba-san. This is not the first time I've been in the same house as a murder suspect." There was a dry pause. "It's not even the tenth."

There wasn't much they could say to that. Saguru gave her his own, Alex's and the police's numbers just in case, and finally hung up after he got a non-commital "Hmm" to his request for Ai to not go investigating on her own.

"Okay, I change my mind; _that_ is a strange girl," Alex said, staring at Hakuba's phone screen as if he could see Ai there. "Is there something in the water in Japan?"

Saguru couldn't help but agree. "One tiny vacation town in England, and three people from Tokyo all decide to come here within a fortnight. Four, if you include me. I don't know what is going on here, but there is definitely something going on."

* * *

Ai hung up her call to Hakuba and Alex. She hesitated, then quickly moved to the door of the bedroom Perreal had given her, opened it and glanced out. There was no one around. Still, she shut the door, went into the connected bathroom, locked that door, and ran the shower.

Only when all that was done did she dial a number to Japan. It rang for several beats, but finally a young, male and extremely groggy voice said "Haib'ra?"

"Edogawa-kun." With the time difference it should be just before 6 am in Tokyo right now. Conan was probably feeling more zombie than human. Oh well. "Could you move to somewhere private?"

"Mmmphfhg. _Fine_." The line went quiet for a few minutes. When Conan spoke again he sounded more awake. "What is it, Haibara? Did they find out anything more about your kidnappers?"

"No, it's not that. Hakuba Saguru and Alex Rider also came to Lymstock." Ai gave him a condensed version of their call.

"I remember Souda Ikumi. She was with me and a whole bunch of other detectives at the Sunset Mansion. Given her involvement—" the sound of a yawn traveled the distance between continents "—they probably actually did go to Lymstock for a case."

"Hmm. How is Hakuba-san as a detective?"

"From the two times I saw him investigate? Slightly below me and Hattori."

Ai snorted. "You would say that."

"He has excellent observation and deductive abilities and an incredible sense of time," Conan stated. "But I've seen him hyper focus on one idea to the point where it blinded him to the true solution. And he has this old-fashioned tendency to help females that's practically Victorian."

"Oh, so chivalry isn't dead."

"That may not a problem normally, but it caused him to underestimate a suspect once. She was young, attractive and seemingly in need of protection—and she turned out to be the killer." Another yawn. "Still, that was quite a while ago. Maybe he's learned from his mistakes."

"I would hope not. He's much too curious about me as it is. But that's not why I called." Ai shifted. "I need you to look into Alex Rider."

He caught his breath. "You think he has something to do with Them?"

"I don't know. I don't think so, but he's too much of an unknown quantity, and he _is_ dangerous." Ai sighed, frustrated. "I was willing to let it go in London, but if I'm going to be seeing more of him soon I want to know what I'm dealing with."

"Sixteen year old male, American British-expat teenager. That's not a lot to go on, Haibara."

"From the way he fought, I'm willing to bet he's had special training. Military level or the criminal equivalent. He knew proper gun handling technique, for one."

"He could have picked that up in the United States," Conan argued. Still, he sounded intrigued. "Fine, I'll see what I can dig up. Can I go back to sleep now?"

Ai laughed, and surprised herself with the sound. "You may." She hung up, turned off the shower, and sat on the bed, thinking.

Hakuba Saguru and Alex Rider should have most of their time occupied with the murder, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that some portion of whatever remained would involve her. Both boys were naturally curious, and they guessed that she was hiding something important.

And they were right. After all, Ai knew who had kidnapped them.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Longest chapter yet! But finally, all the main canon players for this story are in place. Akako is purposely being more restrained than usual to keep a low profile, but I still find her to be the hardest character to write.


	8. The Artist

Hakuba had wanted to see the scene of the crime as well, so instead of meeting at the Mansfields' hotel Hakuba rented a car and drove Alex and himself to the cottage of interest. This was a neat cabin of stone facing the shore of a small lake in front and verdant forests in the back. Not ten minutes after they arrived a blue van pulled up beside their rental car on the gravel and four people got out–the three remaining Mansfields and Akako.

Oliver Mansfield was in his late forties, with a tanned face and an athletic build, but he moved carefully, like one suddenly ten years older. In Camille Mansfield's copper hair and polished appearance Alex recognized the shadow of what her daughter could have grown up to be. She, like her husband moved with a brittleness ill at ease with her long limbs. In contrast to her parents, Elaine Mansfield was a ball of suppressed anger and bewilderment; she slammed the van door after she got out, and glared at Hakuba and Alex through her glasses as if they had personally offended her. A short, chubby, still awkward fifteen year old, she looked unrelated to Akako, who slid out smoothly from the other side of the van, even though both girls had dark red hair and wore black.

"Why did the police give this to _you_?" she interrupted just as Hakuba finished introducing Alex and himself to her parents (whatever his other faults, Alex had to admit the other teen had impeccable manners when he wanted to). "Akako says you're her classmate. You can't be more than two years older than me."

"He is my classmate, Elaine-chan." Akako stood next to her, dark amusement compared to her cousin's belligerence. "And I do believe he is qualified. He is always skipping our classes for his cases, so I would like to think he has at least a decent success rate. When he is not chasing Kaitou KID, that is."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, Koizumi-san," Hakuba sighed. But then Akako gave him a genuine smile of support, and he somehow couldn't maintain his irritation at the Mansfields' lack of confidence in his abilities. He could guess that Elaine's parents were privately equally skeptical; she was just a lot blunter about her doubts. "Mr. and Mrs. Mansfield, could you come into the living room? There are some details I want to confirm about that night."

They all walked inside. At the sight of the bright yellow crime scene tape which surrounded the living room, Elaine said in a strained voice, "You don't need me for that. I'm going to my room–I need to pick up some stuff anyways."

She headed up the stairs without waiting for a response. Akako looked between her and Hakuba standing with the elder Mansfields a few times, then made her decision and followed her up. Alex chose to join the two girls upstairs as well, reasoning that something interesting could be revealed up there and Hakuba was obviously staying in the living room.

* * *

Elaine's room in the cottage was small, with a view of the lake. Some clothes in Akako's style were scattered on the top bunk bed and hung from the half-open closet, and some math notes in Japanese were on the desk; the two girls seemed to have been sharing the room. Artwork covered the walls: watercolors of the lake, charcoal sketches of forest scenes, eclectic pen drawings of fantastical creatures. Elaine moved about the room, picking up several sketching pencils and a chamois cloth used for blending.

"You drew all these?" Alex asked her, slightly impressed.

"Most of them. The watercolors are Amelia's. Were." She looked up at the ceiling, grey eyes blinking furiously, shoulders suddenly stiff.

Akako shared a look with Alex. She must have comforted her younger cousin multiple times already this week, but she was still not very at ease or used to the process. After all, the women of her side of the family were not given to tears. As the awkward pause stretched on and she realized no help was forthcoming in this area from Alex, she moved closer to Elaine–enough for solidarity, but not for pity–and said loudly with a glare at Alex, "So, what are you and Hakuba-san's plans for investigating?"

"Oh, uhm, we're talking to the suspects in order. We're going to see Catherine Renfrew this afternoon, I believe. She's apparently a bit of a loner."

"She is. Mom had to try really hard to convince her to come," Elaine said, her control restored but shoulders still stiff. "Amelia loved her work; she was over the moon when she heard Ms. Renfrew was coming to the party."

She sounded rather disapproving. "You don't like her work?" Alex asked. He knew next to nothing about art, never mind contemporary art.

Elaine shrugged dismissively. "Her technique is bloody fantastic. She likes to paint in the more classical styles–some of her Renaissance-inspired pieces actually look like they could have come from 16th century Italy. But I've always found most of her stuff rather soulless. I like to have less form and more feeling in art." She tilted her head. "Do you think he's done down there?"

Alex could still pick up indistinct voices from downstairs. "I don't think so."

"Huh. Do you really think he can solve this?" she asked Akako. "I mean really. Not just because he's your classmate or you think he's cute or something."

"I resent that remark," Akako said lightly. "I am quite capable of finding a guy good-looking and a complete idiot at the same time, you know." At Elaine's exasperated look, she continued more seriously, "Hakuba-san is not an idiot."

Well, if Hakuba was investigating he may as well do the same. Alex caught Elaine's eyes. "Could you think of any reason at all why someone would want to kill your sister?"

Elaine's eyes grew fierce again, but he held her gaze. "I'm not asking just out of curiosity," he said, as gently as he could. "We need to establish a motive if we want to get anywhere finding her killer."

"I really don't know," she finally said, voice hollow. "When you come down to it, Amelia was a normal twenty year old girl. She was sometimes bright, sometimes bossy and full of herself, sometimes jealous or selfish."

"That's rather...frank."

She shrugged. "I loved Amelia. That doesn't mean I liked her all the time. She had people she liked and disliked, and people who liked and disliked her, but I don't think...no one at that party knew her enough to hate her."

"Maybe she wasn't the one who was supposed to die?" Akako suggested suddenly. At their looks she defended, "What? Everyone keeps saying no one has any reason to kill Amelia. What if the poison was meant for someone else?"

"You mean she died _by mistake_?" Elaine was appalled. Alex, on the other hand, thought it was a good suggestion – except from what he could remember everyone poured their own drinks after dinner. That was the snag that you hit no matter what. Still, he made a note to talk to Hakuba about this theory later.

* * *

"I've considered that," Hakuba said when Alex relayed the conversation and Akako's idea that Amelia hadn't been the intended victim. They had finished talking with the Mansfields, and were now driving to see Catherine Renfrew. "But everyone poured their own glass of wine at that party. Well, almost everyone—Andrea Beckley poured a drink for herself and one for William Carmichael. Even if the poison was meant for someone else, you still have the same problem of how to make sure the poison went to the correct person. I'm glad to hear Koizumi is seriously trying to help, but her theory doesn't hold."

"Did you learn anything from your questioning?" Alex asked.

"Nothing new. I was trying to confirm the order in which everyone went up and got drinks. I'm pretty sure I've got it down now. Carmichael opened and decanted the wine, but got a small glass of port to drink. Then Perreal went up to get a glass of the white wine, followed by Beckley. She poured one glass for herself and brought another for Carmichael, since he said he wanted a glass later. Then Amelia got her glass, followed by Renfrew, and Mr. and Mrs. Mansfield, as the hosts, drank last."

"So if her glass was tampered with before she got it, the only ones who could have done it are Carmichael, Perreal and Beckley. If it was afterwards, it would have to be either Perreal or Renfrew."

"None of whom have ever met Amelia before that night, as far as we know of," Hakuba said in frustration.

"...So we still don't know how anyone could have poisoned her, or why. So what are we looking for in the suspects, exactly?"

"Motive, for one. Basic chemistry or herbology knowledge, for another. That atropine was extracted and purified manually from the belladonna nightshade plant. Forensics said they could probably even identify if a sample came from the same batch, if they had one."

"I don't think our poisoner is stupid enough to keep more of the stuff lying around. Or the equipment used to make it."

"I know," Hakuba sighed. "It would be smartest to destroy all of that once he or she was finished. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"It's not finished. Unless Amelia Mansfield's death was just the beginning, and there is still more to come."

* * *

Catherine Renfrew's house was in an isolated area deep in the woods, far away from any signs of civilization. Even with directions, it took Saguru and Alex more than two hours and several wrong turns to find. It was a medium sized two-storey house, with lichen growing on the mortar and ivy vines running long arms along the grey stone walls, as if trying to pull them back into the earth they came from. It was otherwise surprisingly well maintained, for all that it looked as if it had grown from the hillside.

"Catherine Renfrew first started painting in Paris about twenty years ago, when she was still a teenager," Hakuba had told Alex as they arrived. "She's thirty-six now. About twelve years ago she bought this house in the wilderness near Lymstock, and she's been living there ever since, though I hear she travels abroad sometimes for her work. Her paintings have always sold well, but in the past few years their popularity has steadily risen, and now an original by her can easily set you back several grand."

The house had no fence. There was a small wooden shed which Alex guessed served as the garage, but its doors were closed, so instead they parked under the cool shade of a chestnut tree in the front of the house. There was a short wait after Hakuba knocked on the knotted oak door, then a woman opened it. She wore a pale blouse and tan linen slacks, and had her long, light brown hair tied back in a loose braid.

"The new detectives, I presume?" The artist's voice was cool, almost emotionless, and once their short introductions were finished she turned on her heel and walked back through her house as if she did not care whether they followed. Up close, Alex could see that she had unusually light brown, almost yellow eyes under straight-cut bangs and clean, classically even features. He thought that Catherine Renfrew must have been beautiful once, and would still be so now if it wasn't for the makeup which lay mask-like over the cold blankness of her face.

Hakuba followed after Ms. Renfrew into her house, and Alex had just stepped across the threshold when there was a tingle of sensation on the back of his neck. Alex instinctively knew that he was being observed. He looked back, but nothing broke the rhythm of moving leaves and flying birds, and there were a thousand possible places to hide. A moment later, the feeling was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. He breathed slowly, went inside, and locked and bolted the door.

Ms. Renfrew's house was sparsely decorated inside, and the light walls and pale hardwood floor combined with the abundance of natural sunlight streaming through large windows gave the impression of open space. The scent of freshly baked pizza filled the air, and the two teenage boys were both suddenly very aware that neither of them had eaten lunch yet. The artist seemed to notice their hunger, and led them all to the dining area without a word. There the source of the smell was revealed to be two pizzas still hot from the oven, placed on a handsome pinewood table along with a porcelain tea set and a jug of lemonade. The dining area had large glass patio doors set in a light wood frame, through which one could see the splendid garden in the yard and the dark woods beyond. As Hakuba tried to make polite small talk with their rather taciturn host, Alex slowly relaxed and forgot about his earlier moment of paranoia. He munched on his pizza, sipped his lemonade and enjoyed the view from the sliding doors, which were open to let the breeze in. As he watched tiny dust motes float lazily in the air, turned to gold specks by the brilliant sunshine, he thought he could understand why the artist had chosen to shut herself away here, so far from civilization. Despite the reason for their visit, Alex could not remember the last time he had felt so peaceful. Time itself seemed to flow more slowly, here.

After they had finished lunch, Hakuba began his questioning of their hostess, while Alex asked to look around her house. Ms. Renfrew even gave them permission to see her studio and the gallery where she stored her paintings, but Alex decided to explore the garden first.

Catherine Renfrew's garden was a tangle of cultivated flowers battling for dominance against their wilder cousins. Far above the sky shone a clear, bright azure, and further away the woods beckoned with their cool shade and dark green depths. _Sabina_ _would have loved this place_ , Alex thought.

He passed what must have been the artist's studio, and saw a tangle of vines covering what looked like a bower beside one wall of the house. Alex tried to see if any of the plants around him were nightshade, but he couldn't find any, and he was soon distracted by the loveliness of the day and of the garden. Summer's full blooms were showing, and the air was filled with the scent of flowers and the mild buzz of bees. It was hard to believe that he was in the same country as MI6 and all the darkness of his past, or that this was the same town where a girl had just died. He was pleasantly full, the sun was shining, and he would have liked nothing better than to find a shaded bench or hammock to nap on.

He didn't see the loose rock on the ground. His foot slipped, and Alex lost his balance for a split second but instantly steadied himself. His drinking glass wasn't so lucky – it dropped from his hand and bounced off the ground with a nasty _crack_ , spilling lemonade everywhere.

Alex winced and swore. It would be just his luck to break his hostess' glassware. He prayed that it wasn't made of some sort of expensive crystal, though the tea set at the lunch table suggested otherwise. The lemonade seemed to have missed his clothes, but now it pooled on the ground and was already starting to attract nearby insects. He ripped a large leaf from a nearby climbing vine and used it to protect his hands as he carefully tried to pick up what remained of his drinking glass. The air now smelled of citrus and flowers.

His fingers brushed the wet ground, and then everything went black.


	9. Flashback to Hell

_Alex was in his old house in Chelsea, and the doorbell was ringing. When the doorbell rang at three am in the morning, it was never good news._

_He crept to the window and looked out at where Jack was opening the door. There was a policeman outside, speaking in the quiet, apologetic voice which delivered the news that his uncle was dead_ —

 _He was walking down Liverpool Street after leaving the Royal & General Bank which was actually a front for MI6 headquarters, head whirling with the recent revelations about his father. There was a sudden flash of pain, and then he had somehow dropped to the ground, blood pouring out of the bullet wound in his chest_—

 _Africa, and burning sunlight and both his arms were screaming, but he clenched on in terror, for if he let go he would drop to the waiting crocodiles below_ —

_He was in Egypt, trapped in the compound of a sociopathic torturer, tied to a chair and watching the television screen in front of him. An explosion, and Alex screamed, grief and pain overwhelming him as the knowledge hit that Jack was dead..._

* * *

Saguru was in the middle of questioning Catherine Renfrew about her interactions with Amelia at the party when he heard the faint sound of a crash and the tinkle of breaking glass. He looked out the patio doors, then leapt out of his seat and ran into the garden as he saw Alex collapse and fall to the ground. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be unconscious, and his entire body was shaking like a leaf.

Alex was clearly alone in the garden, and there were no signs of life in the wilderness nearby. Alex didn't appear to be injured at all, but he seemed to be having some kind of fit. Then Saguru noticed his lemonade glass broken on the ground, and felt cold in spite of the noon day sun. Poison? But why would Renfrew only target Alex, when he was the bigger threat from an investigative point of view? Or was this related to Alex's spying activities?

"What happened here?" He turned and saw Ms. Renfrew run up to them. Before he could stop her she leaned down and briskly shook Alex's shoulder, not roughly but not gently either. Her back was to Saguru, but he could see the woman suddenly freeze.

The reaction was immediate. Alex's eyes snapped open, then both of his hands clamped onto the artist's arm in a vice grip, and he pulled himself up, using the momentum to throw the older woman into a nearby clump of lilies. His brown eyes were dark and dangerous, his entire being on edge as if preparing for an attack.

Saguru swore in his head. This wasn't Alex Rider the teenager who had accompanied him for the past few days. This was the Alex Rider in the truck who had taken down an armed and hostile man. The trained spy, instinctively trying to identify and eliminate any possible threats.

"Rider-san. Alex," he said, as calmly as he could. The sound seemed to snap Alex out of whatever fit he had been in. His eyes slowly came back into focus, though his body was still tensed, ready for an attack. Saguru noted with relief that he was breathing steadily, and his pupils weren't dilated. Not atropine poisoning, then. He looked away from Alex, trying to observe more of their surroundings.

Ms. Renfrew had twisted her body eel-like as she fell so that she landed properly, and she sat up from the now-crushed lilies which had cushioned her, staring at Alex. Saguru's somehow-still-active sense of chivalry prompted him that if she had nothing to do with this, he should ask if she was okay, but the words caught in his throat.

Catherine Renfrew had just been tossed to the ground by a sixteen year old boy, but her face was completely blank. No indignation, no curiosity, nothing. Saguru suddenly noticed that her eyes were such a light shade of brown that they looked yellow in the sunlight, and they showed no more emotion than a pair of glass marbles set in the face of a store mannequin. Her splayed limbs were askew yet relaxed; a marionette with its strings cut. Even so, he had the distinct impression that Ms. Renfrew was sizing Alex up with those empty eyes, cataloging him as a potential threat just like what he was doing with her.

Time seemed to freeze as the artist and the teenage spy silently assessed each other, then the moment was broken as he asked, "Are you alright, Alex?"

Alex hesitated, then firmly nodded after a quick glance at the older woman. Still, Saguru pulled on latex gloves, and made sure he got in between the two of them as he bent down and picked up the larger pieces of the broken lemonade glass and put it into a plastic evidence bag, carefully preserving as much of the remaining drops of liquid as possible. When that was done he faced their hostess and suspect again.

"I'm going to need to use your first aid kit, and to take samples of the tea and lemonade in the kitchen," he said, staring her down and trying to be as authoritative as possible. He tried not to think of the fact that if anything happened to the two of them, they were more than an hour away from any help. "And then I'm going to take Alex to the nearest hospital, but I will require another interview from you at a later date."

"I'm fine," Alex said, voice cold and professional. "I would much rather search her house."

"Well then, we all have our tasks; first aid kit, searching my house, and finishing up my slice of pizza." The artist's voice was as bland as her face.

"And we're suppose to believe you know nothing about any of this?" Alex asked, not bothering to hide his suspicion.

She raised one eyebrow a fraction of an inch; a deliberate arch. "About what? Ah, you do not typically have fits in other people's gardens and break their drinking glasses, Mr. Rider? If that lemonade had been poisoned like that girl's wine, you would both be writhing on the ground instead of glaring at me right now."

"Is that a threat, Ms. Renfrew?"

"Just an observation, if a rather obvious one. Aren't you detectives supposed to be the ones making them?" Catherine Renfrew sounded more bored than anything else. "The first aid kit's in the cabinet beside the fridge, second shelf. I'll be in the living room if you have any more requests or accusations. If not, gentlemen, you can show yourselves out." She walked back casually towards the house.

* * *

"Alex, we are _not_ staying here," Saguru hissed. "You need a hospital, and a full tox screen."

"I told you, I'm fine now." Alex kept his voice low, but he was determined. "I've met assassins with friendlier personalities, but she's right. I don't know what happened to me, but it wasn't atropine poisoning." One of the side effects of atropine belladonna poisoning was hallucinations, he remembered, but the vivid flashbacks he had experienced felt nothing like any drug he knew about. They were more like reliving memories. If he closed his eyes, he could still conjure up the dry heat of the Egyptian sun and the taste of salt in the air.

"That doesn't mean it wasn't something else, and the longer we stand out here—"

"We're at least an hour away from any medical help. I don't think she poisoned me, but if she did I doubt I'd make it that long, and I would rather use the time to find out whatever the hell she's hiding."

Saguru pinched the bridge of his nose, frustrated. "I'm calling a helicopter. You're going to take some activated charcoal from the first aid kit, and then we can search the house until the helicopter arrives. Deal?"

The emergency helicopter arrived with surprising promptness, and dropped Alex off at a university hospital outfitted with a medical lab, where he was given a careful check-up and his blood taken for a whole battery of tests. There hadn't been enough room in the helicopter for Hakuba, so he followed in his car. By the time the sun had begun to set, Alex had shown no further symptoms and both his blood and Hakuba's samples had tested clean for the more commonly used poisons. Not finding anything wrong, they were forced to go home.

* * *

Alex was quiet for the first half hour of their drive back. Saguru gave him his much-needed mental space at first, letting him stare out of the window of the car at the passing gold and green of dappled sunshine and blurring foliage. But eventually he couldn't hold in his questions any longer.

"Alex...what happened back there?"

"I'm not exactly clear myself," he answered. "I'd stumbled and dropped my lemonade, and when I tried to pick up the glass...there were these flashbacks." There was a long stretch of silence as Alex tried to figure out exactly how much he was willing to tell Hakuba. He looked over at the other teen. Hakuba was intensely curious, he could tell. But he was respecting Alex's wish for privacy and not demanding every detail, which was more than Alex had ever expected. And watching him work on the case these few days, Alex realized that Saguru Hakuba had a strong sense of justice and a code of honour, and his concern was genuine. That was enough for Alex to be willing to share at least the bare bones of his past.

"There was the morning I learned about my uncle's death...and some parts of my missions. The...more unpleasant parts." Again he paused. He couldn't tell Hakuba everything, but he needed him to understand the seriousness of what he had been through. "Times I almost died. There was this one time when I got shot...and when a madman killed my guardian purely to torture me." By some miracle he managed to keep his voice steady. "It felt real, like I was reliving it, all over again. Like PTSD, almost, but I have no idea what could have caused it."

"Was there anything in that garden which could have acted as a trigger? Bright lights, a certain smell?" Hakuba kept his voice clinical, but his hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Alex shook his head. "Nothing that I can think of." Quite the reverse — the garden had been one of the most peaceful, removed places he'd ever seen. Its owner, on the other hand, unnerved him in a way he couldn't explain.

"Did you learn much from Ms. Renfrew?"

"Just some biographical information. We were in the middle of discussing her movements at the party when we heard the crash."

"Anything...out of the ordinary?"

"Nothing about her seemed especially criminal now, though of course she would hardly say anything if there was. Now, that is. Catherine Renfrew grew up with her single mother in poverty on the streets of New Orleans. Her mother passed away when she was thirteen. She had a pretty hard life until a wealthy philanthropist noticed the girl's artistic talent and paid for her scholarship to Paris-Sorbonne University in France. She did quite well at school, and her benefactress left her a small nest egg which supported her until she could make a steady living off of her art."

Alex frowned. From the little he had heard of Ms. Renfrew's life, she didn't seemed to be a dangerously megalomaniac at all, at least not in the vein of McCain or Cray (it really said something that he was now quite an expert on dangerous megalomaniacs). She was quite well-off, possibly even extremely wealthy, but it was nowhere near the incredible wealth and influence that Damian Cray or Julia Rothman had wielded to such evil ends. All she did, it seemed, was paint and tend to her garden in solitude, tucked away in her private, hidden corner of the world. He remembered their last view of Catherine Renfrew, settled comfortably on the living room couch with a plate of pizza and a taunting glass of lemonade in front of her. She had given them a languid wave goodbye as they went out the door. He didn't like her very much, but there was no telling whether her actions were done out of malice or just artistic eccentricity. Or even if she was responsible for his weird flashbacks at all.

"I don't suppose you found anything incriminating in her house either?" Hakuba asked. Alex snorted.

"I barely had time to look through all the rooms before you dragged me away. Paintings and art supplies, a bit messy, nothing unexpected. No chemistry set with vials conveniently labelled 'atropine' or giant lasers of doom. We should have stayed longer. I haven't shown any other symptoms, and I don't think I will."

"Better safe than sorry," Hakuba said softly. "You know, most of the poisoning victims I've seen are already dead. It's one of the downfalls of seeing so many murders: you become accustomed to seeking justice for the dead, instead of trying to save the living. I do not want that inexperience to end up costing yours, or anyone else's life."

"Hey, you did fine saving Ai and yourself in London," Alex reminded him wryly.

A beep came from the partition in between them. Hakuba's cell phone.

"Could you get that?" Hakuba asked. Alex complied. It was a text message, thankfully in English.

"It's Akako. She says she's emailed you the names and descriptions of the guys she asked about Christian Auster," Alex read.

"Good. I'll pass that along to Inspector Graves, and—why are you smiling?"

"And she wants to know if you want to study maths with her tomorrow, and I quote, 'since we both have to write the test once we return to Japan and somehow I doubt you've studied at all.'" Saguru blinked, considered it, and finally sighed. It was tempting, but—

"I'll be fine. Tell her I'm too busy with the case, but I can lend her my notes if she wants."

"You are not."

"We still have all of the rest of the suspect interviews scheduled for tomorrow."

"That's in the afternoon. You have all morning free. You've been eating, breathing and I'm sure _dreaming_ this case since you got it; take a break. I can think of worse people to study with."

"It would look bad to the Mansfields if I spent time cozy-ing up with a classmate instead of investigating their daughter's death," Saguru hedged.

"So go study at the library together instead of at their hotel, then. I'm sure Akako won't mind." Alex bit back a smirk. He probably shouldn't find it funny that the detective was almost squirming in the driver's seat. "Now now Saguru, seventeen is a bit old for cooties."

"It's not that." Hakuba shot an icy glare at him before turning his attention back to the road. They had finally arrived back in town. "Koizumi-san is admittedly very physically attractive. Unfortunately, she is well aware of the fact, and I'm pretty sure she's the type who goes through guys at the rate a flu victim goes through tissues. Hormones are an extremely foolish way to make decisions by, and I can't afford distractions on this case."

"My god, you _really_ need to cut loose." Alex began typing on the phone.

"What are you doing?!"

"Typing out a reply."

"Alex—"

"Relax, I haven't sent it yet." Alex dangled the cell phone just out of Hakuba's reach, still grinning. "You are thinking way too hard about this. It's just one simple question: do you think you'd enjoy spending time with her, or no?" There was a pause.

" _Fine_. Send the damn thing. Just so you know, if this all goes pear-shaped later on I'm blaming you."

"Oh come on. You're studying maths with a hot redhead. What's the worst that could happen?"

They had arrived back at their bed and breakfast. Hakuba parked, then snatched his phone back with a scowl. The two of them went into their suite, Alex grabbing the case files on the way to his own room. Once he had closed his door and was alone, whatever remained of his grin slipped and faded.

He opened his laptop and ran a search on Catherine Renfrew. There wasn't much: scraps of biographical information that he already knew, and some images of her paintings. Looking through the pictures, Alex thought he understood what Elaine had been talking about; they were undeniably beautiful, but soulless. All the paintings he'd seen at her house had been the same, with two exceptions. One was an abstract piece done in swirling shades of red which evoked the sense of turmoil and doom. The other showed three children—two young boys and a younger girl—sleeping peacefully under the shade of a tree with a field of golden sunflowers in the background. Alex somehow knew that they were related to the owner of the grey house in the woods, but he had no idea who they could have been.

He sat back on his bed and rubbed his eyes. Teasing Hakuba in the car had been a welcome distraction which he had taken full advantage of, but now that he was alone he could sense every shadow in every corner of his room. It was like the first few months after Egypt, when he had been paranoid and hyper-alert during the days and woke screaming from nightmares at night. It was a miracle he hadn't driven the Pleasures away, and he would always be grateful for their patient caring and acceptance. He'd thought that he had recovered. He knew that if he closed his eyes, he would be dragged unrelentingly back to those dark phantasms which had seized him, in that sunlit garden of the artist with empty eyes.

Alex grimly opened the first of the case files and began reading. It was past time he caught up to Hakuba on this case, and it wasn't like he was going to be sleeping tonight anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a comment or review! Constructive criticism, theories and wild guesses all accepted!


	10. Belladonna

The next morning dawned cloudy and cool. Saguru ate his breakfast alone inside, and dressed with more care than usual—after all, he was meeting the rest of the suspects and possibly the police later, he told himself. Alex hadn't left his room yet. The lights in the other boy's room had still been on when he'd finally gone to bed after updating his case notes and unsuccessfully trying to fit the pieces together for the fiftieth time. Saguru hoped that Alex was getting his sleep.

Instead of the library, Akako had chosen a picnic table in the town park which overlooked a small river, and luckily the day wasn't windy enough to make her choice impractical. She had already arrived and placed her books out over the table. There was a paper cup of tea in front of her, its logo matching that of a cafe he passed on the way. It was still steaming, so she must have gotten here less than five minutes ahead of him.

"Ohayo gozaimasu, Koizumi-san," he greeted her, then commented, "Your clothes are different." Akako's style tended more towards the Gothic end of the spectrum in Japan. Today she was dressed in a sheer black blouse and short skirt, with a soft brown leather jacket for the morning chill. It suddenly occurred to him that he'd never seen her wear light colours. Here in Britain, the prevalence for the darker end of the colour scheme should be due to preference; after all, there would have been no way she could have known she needed Western style mourning clothes when she had packed.

"Ohayo, Hakuba-san," she acknowledged, then smirked. "Oh, I thought it wise to tone it down a little to not offend English sensibilities. I wouldn't want them to think I'll be a bad influence on Elaine-chan." She sighed. "I tried asking her for help, but doing calculus in English gives me a headache."

"Well, it's not that bad if you think of it intuitively as the concept of smooth change..."

To Saguru's surprise, they actually managed to cover a considerable amount of material. Akako was unexpectedly strong in geometry but shaky in analysis, and after an hour and 27 minutes she called a break.

"No more blasted product and chain rules." Akako stretched and he forced himself to look away as the movement pulled the gauzy fabric of her blouse tight. "Any progress on the case, Hakuba-kun?"

Saguru tried not to react to the change in honorific. "I'm still in the process of interviewing suspects, Koizumi-san. I should have the rest of them done by the end of today." The past hour of explaining and working on problems together had admittedly been a welcome break from constantly thinking about the case.

"No theories, no one leading the top of the suspect list?"

"If there was I can't exactly tell you."

"Ah, so that's a no."

"There isn't much physical evidence to work off of. Or possible motives," Saguru admitted in frustration.

Akako was staring at him rather intently, head slightly tilted to one side. It made him feel intensely self-aware. "What is it?"

She looked to be weighing her words carefully. "So you would not consider other kinds of information, say intuition, as aids to your investigation?" She finally said.

"Intuition is useful if it can lead you to evidence—it's not admissible in a court of law by itself. And it should be impossible for a crime scene to have no forensic evidence, according to Locard anyways." At her blink he explained, "Locard's exchange principle: 'Every contact leaves a trace'. It's the basis of forensic science. 'Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him... Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value.'"

And that was the problem. They had as much evidence as they could reasonable hope for; the problem was understanding how it all linked together. As things stood there was enough to rank the suspects in terms of likelihood of guilt, but without a clear idea of how or why the poisoning was committed they couldn't hope to get an arrest warrant, never mind a conviction.

"So you've never had a case where the evidence wasn't enough?"

"I wouldn't say that. Kaitou KID is an ongoing example, as has been publicly recorded."

Akako broke out into laughter. "Ah yes, KID would be the exception that proves the rule, wouldn't he?"

Saguru didn't know what caused her amusement, but he couldn't begrudge the smile that still played about her lips when they went back to studying. The two of them continued working on maths until almost noon, and from there it was natural to grab sandwiches from a shop close by and eat together by the banks of the river, watching the clouds make sickle-shaped reflections on wind-broken waters.

"So are you enjoying England?" It wasn't the smoothest of conversation gambits, but he'd never mastered the art of engaging small talk that both his parents wielded with such ease. What did normal teenagers say in these situations?

Akako gave a hum of assent, her mouth full of black forest ham. "Recent events aside, I've liked what I've seen so far. Everything here feels so different, even the forests. Still, I do wish this had happened in Japan."

"You think the British police are less effective than their Japanese counterparts?" Saguru smiled. "Having worked with both, I can reassure you on that front."

"No. Because Japan has the death penalty, and England does not."

Saguru stared at her, mouth suddenly dry. Akako matched his gaze boldly, expression dark and red hair shifting in the breeze. She didn't just take her cousin's death seriously, he realized. Akako had a temper, and under the casualness was barely veiled anger. This had the potential to end badly.

"Koizumi-san..." He couldn't screw this up. "Even if this had happened in Japan, the killer wouldn't receive capital punishment. Not based on the criteria of the Nagayama Standard. Sentiments of the bereaved family members I could give you, but death by hanging is usually only imposed for multiple murders. That's not the case here."

"Not yet."

He froze. "Koizumi Akako. If there is anything that you know—"

"Oh, I _know_ nothing, Hakuba-kun." Her smile spread wide, slow and sweet and completely false. "Just...intuition, that's all."

"Well, in this case I will be happy to listen."

"Hmmm." She considered it. "How about this? I'll tell you later—if you bring me along to your meeting today." She sighed at the look on his face. "I give my word I won't try to cause any trouble. I just want to have something to tell the Mansfields."

"Is this why you asked me out here today?"

"No. I _do_ need to study, and we both needed the break." Her expression turned pleading. "Come on, Hakuba-kun, please?"

"...Only if you promise not to do anything rash." The words slipped out unintentionally. Bloody stupid hormones.

"And put your investigation at risk? Of course not. Thank you!" She beamed at him, and he made a mental note to stay far away from Koizumi in future casework situations, in order to avoid making suboptimal decisions while investigating.

"Oh, and Hakuba-kun?"

"...Yes?"

"If you're going to see the other suspects and the police later, please, lose the tweed."

* * *

After his lunch with Akako, Hakuba picked up Alex at their bed and breakfast, and the three of them drove to Simon Perréal's sprawling mansion. It was a forty-five minute drive, and Alex nodded off for most of it. Saguru wondered exactly how little sleep the other boy did or did not get.

"Well, hopefully Catherine Renfrew won't be there," he muttered. Alex still heard him.

"Wait, I thought the point was to gather all the party guests at Perréal's house so you could interview them all in one go."

"I only really need the ones we still haven't talked to. I did invite her for the sake of completeness, but I wouldn't be surprised if she decides not to make the drive." Alex nodded. Akako blinked.

"Your interview with Ms. Renfrew didn't go well?" She asked.

"That's one way of putting it," Alex remarked. "She's not very friendly," he added in response to Akako's curious look.

Perréal's multi-storey mansion was originally a rustic log cabin that had been expanded through the addition of multiple rooms built besides and on top of each other in great rectangular blocks of smooth stone. Thick curved concrete strips of varying widths were thrown in here and there, sometimes covering whole walls or even sticking out like bizarre insect antennae. There were rooftop gardens where the balcony of one block opened onto the ceiling of another, and one room on the top of the pile had two walls made entirely of clear, concave glass. Alex had the impression that the architect in charge of rebuilding took a hornet's nest as inspiration, and also decided to try out abstract cubism at the same time.

Simon Perréal himself was a strikingly handsome man in his late thirties with blond hair, an expressive face and a consciously photogenic smile. Alex had the feeling that he treated every interaction as a performance; he greeted them with far more graciousness than a trio of teenagers really warranted, even if one of them was investigating him for murder. He even kissed Akako's hand in greeting, which caused her to smile and Hakuba and Alex to share a sardonic glance.

"You three are certainly very punctual!" He said as he ushered them inside. His voice held a trace of a French accent. "2:00pm on the dot. _Non, non,_ no need to take off your shoes. I'm afraid you're not the first ones here though—Cat beat you. _Beldame_ , the young Sherlock is here."

Alex felt more than saw Hakuba stiffen at the sight of Catherine Renfrew sitting in the living area Perréal guided them to. The artist wore dark jeans and a silk blouse the color of gunmetal, her face and manner as smooth and cold as ever.

"Do you two know each other well?" Alex couldn't imagine anyone giving Ms. Renfrew a nickname, close or not.

"No, but Simon insists on familiarity."

"Oh, nonsense. Of course I know Catherine—we were both at Sorbonne together." Perréal beamed a green eyed, megawatt smile at Ms. Renfrew and was entirely ignored. "Didn't realize she was living here until the Mansfields' party though. Would have visited if I knew."

"Don't. The entire point of living where I do is to avoid meeting people."

"Yet you let us come," Alex challenged. "And aren't you here now?"

"I'm here now to avoid a repeat of your earlier visit," she replied without missing a beat.

" _Beldame_? Is that French?" Akako asked their host.

"Not entirely; it's a moniker, inspired by Keats. 'I met a lady in the meads—'"

"Simon fancies himself a poet," Ms. Renfrew cut in evenly. One pale hand reached up to play with a thin silver cross on a delicate chain around her throat.

"I appreciate all beauty; artistic, scientific and of course physical."

"Is that why you bought this house?"

"Oh, the outside is a brutalist monstrosity," Perréal agreed with her cheerfully. "But I got it at an amazing price considering how big it is. And the architecture does have some rather interesting scientific properties."

At that moment Ai came into the room, and Mr. Perréal was distracted by the new addition to the audience. "Ah, Ai, you said you met these two gentlemen in London?"

"Yes," Ai said simply. "Hello again, Hakuba-kun, Alex. Agasa-hakase went to town today, so it's just me."

Then the doorbell rang. "That must be the Carmichaels." Mr. Perréal strode to the door and returned with two men and a woman. The distinguished-looking older man was in his late fifties to early sixties, with dark hair barely touched by grey. The younger man had greatly similar features, but on a larger, more powerfully built frame. William and Joshua Carmichael. Alex guessed that Carmichael Jr. came along to support his father and fiancée, since he hadn't been at the Mansfields' party. Andrea Beckley was a stylish woman in her late twenties with fair hair cut boyishly short. She had the fit figure and deep tan of an athlete who spend a lot of time outdoors, and looked to be a few years younger than her fiancé.

Once the round of introductions was completed, the center of attention focused on Hakuba, who began giving instructions with full self-assurance. "I would like to speak to each one of you alone. Mr. Perréal, do you have a library we could use?"

"But of course."

"Very well. It would be best if the rest of you can wait near here. Ms. Renfrew, if we could finish up our interview yesterday?"

Catherine Renfrew gave a shrug and got up. She and Hakuba followed Mr. Perréal down a corridor and around two turns to a well-furnished library with modern chrome tables, deep leather seats and pale sunlight shining through large, open windows.

"By the way, is there anything you two would like to drink? Water, juice, Coke? Or something stronger? I recall you used to have a fondness for Sauternes wine, _Beldame_."

"Iced water."

"I'm fine with water as well, Mr. Perréal. Thank you," Saguru said, watching Ms. Renfrew and calculating the best approach to interrogating her. Simon Perréal bowed and left them, closing the library door. Saguru hoped Alex was observing the remaining suspects in the living room; in situations like this, what people said in anticipation and under what they thought was less scrutiny could be just as important as what they gave during questioning.

* * *

Alex noted the slight decrease tension in the room after Hakuba left to talk to Ms. Renfrew alone. The remaining adults stood close together, William Carmichael next to his son next to Ms. Beckley, no doubt in solidarity. He sat down between Ai and Akako on one of the couches, slouching a little on purpose.

"That boy...does he truly know how to handle this?" William Carmichael asked in a deep, stern voice.

Alex mentally debated the merits of leaving Hakuba's tentative authority intact versus improving their chances of gathering more intel. The latter won.

"Don't look at me sir, I'm just following him for his mom," he said, dialing up the 'proper British schoolboy' accent. Ai gave him a sidelong glance from his left.

The older Carmichael frowned. "Elizabeth Morgan comes from fine blood, and her son's sense of justice is commendable, but shouldn't this be left to the proper channels?"

"Father, if Inspector Graves approved I'm sure it's fine," Joshua Carmichael said.

Just then Simon Perréal came back into the living room. "Well, Catherine and the young detective are having their chat. Anyone want drinks? You can't all just stand there. I've got coffee, tea, juice, pop, and a pretty decent wine selection, if I do say so myself—for the adults, but if you two want a glass I won't tell." He gave a friendly wink at Alex and Akako, but mostly at Akako. "Nothing stronger than tea for you though, Ai. You know, I caught this little girl going through my gourmet coffee stash yesterday."

"The myth about caffeine stunting growth has been scientifically proven false," Ai said. "But I'll have some green tea. Thank you, Mr. Perréal."

The two Carmichaels were persuaded to try a Bordeaux wine, Akako wanted iced tea, and everyone else went with water or hot tea. Mr. Perréal whirled and left again to complete his new task as the host. Once he was gone, the conversation reformed as if they had been dining at a restaurant and a particularly charismatic waiter had interrupted.

"I'm sure Graves did what he thought most fitting of his station," William Carmichael continued. "But his jurisdiction is a rural and sparsely populated area. I'm not sure if he is used to dealing with this type of people. Perréal is a well-respected scientist, even if he is an actor. And Oliver Mansfield is a don."

And you are old money and near blue blood, Alex finished in his mind. Lord of the manor type, and probably resents being told what to do by a country inspector and a boy less than half your age. He wondered if Carmichael Jr. felt the same way.

"So with Inspector Graves for age and Hakuba for the family name we're set then," Joshua Carmichael said, slightly sarcastic. Alex noted the slight tenseness between father and son with interest.

"Oh I do hope so," Akako said softly, eyes wide and focused on the Carmichael's. A tremble came into her voice. "It's been so horrible since Amelia died."

Alex thought she was laying it on a bit thick, but the two men seemed to buy it. "I know it must be very difficult for you right now, young lady," Carmichael Sr. said reassuringly. "A family tragedy can tear your world apart. I lost my younger son six years ago, and to this day the wounds are still there."

"Yes, Eric was the best of us," Joshua said, a faraway look in his eye. "Nothing was ever the same again, afterwards."

"What happened?" Alex asked.

"He got into a car accident. Some underage idiot who was driving drunk," Andrea Beckley cut in with a sharp look at Akako. "I thought Amelia Mansfield was your distant cousin?"

Akako was saved from answering when their host returned, tray of drinks and food in hand.

"Here you go. For water I've got bottled mineral water, and the jug's iced and full of lemon slices. I also got some snacks. Feel free to serve yourself. I think Mr. Hakuba and _Beldame_ should be done their talk pretty soon," Perréal said, with a glance towards the direction of the library. Conversation was quickly deferred in favour of sampling the large selection of refreshments.

William Carmichael swirled and sniffed his glass of red wine with the deliberate smoothness of a connoisseur. "Not a bad Cabernet Sauvignon," he said approvingly. "A bit young, but not bad at all."

"I heard you make wine from your own grapes?" Akako asked. "That must be a lot of work."

"Yes, I have my own vineyard in Bordeaux, and I make a batch with the crop every year. It's a pretty good bonding experience. Eric used to help with the whole process every year, and afterwards Joshua—"

"I'm afraid my tastes aren't as sophisticated as those of the rest of the family," Joshua Carmichael said smoothly. "Or that of our host. Paris is the métier of art and culture, after all."

"Was Ms. Renfrew like that at Sorbonne too?" Alex asked Perréal while the others kept on talking about Carmichael's vineyard.

"Oh, she's always been an ice queen." Perréal grinned. "I've seen her drive some big burly college sophomores to tears when she was still a freshman. And the heavens help anyone who tried to ask her out."

"You don't seem to mind."

"One gets used to the attitude after a while. In fact, you could say that's her appeal. She's barely changed at all."

"And you're still a gossip, Simon." Ms. Renfrew's voice came from right beside him. He could see Hakuba standing further back; the other teen must have finished his questioning. The buzz of conversation had risen, but even so Alex didn't like that he hadn't heard her footsteps.

* * *

Saguru stood at the edge of the hallway, taking in the general dynamics of the room in the brief period before everyone noticed his return. Alex, Catherine Renfrew and Simon Perréal formed one cluster in the front, with Alex subtly moving to keep Ms. Renfrew in his full view while backing away from her at the same time. His interview with her had been short and unproductive, and the frustrating part was that Saguru still didn't know whether it was intentional on the woman's part or just her contrary nature. On Ms. Renfrew's other side Perréal had turned up the charm, but from all appearances he would have found more success trying to tempt a cat with broccoli.

Further back the Carmichaels and Andrea Beckley stood in a loose half-circle around Akako and Ai on the couch. Now that it was warmer Akako had taken off her jacket, putting the sheer blouse (and her figure) underneath on full display, and she had moved forward where she sat so that her already short skirt slid up even higher. She certainly had both men's full attention, and even Saguru stared for a few seconds longer than was proper. Ms. Beckley's face had a frozen look he recognized from years of forced society events: irritation held back by ingrained politeness. Ai, meanwhile, watched them all with an amused tilt to her lips.

He stepped forward. The chatter began to die off, but he ignored the sensation of everyone watching and went over to the Carmichaels. Just as he was about to ask Carmichael Sr. for the next interview, Akako set down her glass of iced tea and spoke up.

"Hakuba-kun, could I talk with you for a minute?" She said in soft Japanese. "It's related to what we talked about this morning."

Saguru quickly replanned his questioning order. "Ms. Beckley, may I speak with you next after this short talk with Ms. Koizumi?"

He led the way back to the library, giving a small shrug to Alex's questioning look on the way. Now that they were alone, Akako looked more hesitant. "What is it, Koizumi-san? I still have several interviews to finish."

"Do you remember what we discussed this morning, about physical evidence and intuition?"

"My memory is not that short, Koizumi-san," he told her wryly.

"And are you still interested in my views, even if you may not believe it?"

"I promise that I will listen," he said more gently. "What is it?"

She gave him a long look of consideration, then finally said. "Very well then. William Carmichael will be the next to die."

* * *

 

Saguru's mind whirled at the possibilities. "Interesting. How did you come up with this theory, Koizumi-san? From your talk with the Carmichaels?"

"No. I dreamt it would happen," Akako said calmly.

There was a long pause. To Saguru's disbelief, she actually seemed to be completely earnest. He knew that people in Japan tended to be more superstitious, but... At a loss to come up with a response which didn't directly question her sanity or lack thereof, he finally went with an ironic, "Does that happen very often?"

"Foreseeing someone's death? Very rarely. The last time, I was still in Japan when I dreamt of my cousin's."

"You predicted Amelia's murder," he said flatly.

"No, I predicted Elaine's," Akako corrected. "She would have been at the cocktail party, someone would have convinced her to try a sip of the wine, and she would have died. I thought keeping her away from the party would have averted it, but Amelia died instead."

"Koizumi-san, that is logically impossible."

"I know you don't believe me, Hakuba-kun, but couldn't you be a little more open-minded?" She sounded impatient. "Wasn't it your Bard who said 'there are more things in heaven and earth—'"

"'Than are dreamt of in your philosophy', yes, but this is _insane_."

"Oh for Lucifer's sake, I'm trying to _help_ —"

"By delaying my interrogations for some wishful fancies?" Thank heavens the others couldn't hear this; he would lose what fragile authority he had.

The conversation went downhill from there. Their argument continued on for several more minutes, reaching a low when an irritated Saguru made a supercilious remark about her upbringing, causing Akako to lose her temper and start swearing rather creatively in...Latin? It was finally interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Alex walked in with a false smile and hard eyes, Ai behind him.

"Did something happen?" Saguru asked, collecting himself.

"Oh no, you guys just left your drinks in the living room," Alex responded pleasantly. He walked over, handing them the drinks in his hands, then continued to the open window and quickly closed and latched it.

Akako took a long sip from her glass. It seemed to calm her down. "That's very thoughtful, Alex, but why did you two really come?"

"We found out why this house looks so strange," Alex said grimly. Saguru frowned, and he continued, "I was talking to Ms. Renfrew on the balcony opposite the living room, and we could both hear you two talking from here. I didn't understand anything you guys were saying, but I'm pretty sure she did."

"Conic sections," Ai said, pointing at one of the many smooth, wide, strangely curved concrete strips outside. At their blank looks she explained: "The curves concentrates and redirects sound waves. They use the same principles to design concert halls. Whoever built this place didn't care about the aesthetic properties, but the _acoustic_ ones."

"All the windows I've seen so far have been left open," Saguru realized.

"And Perréal's been wandering all over the house playing host, so he could have been listening in the entire time," Alex said. "Does he know Japanese?"

Ai nodded. "He and Agasa-hakase have been primarily communicating in English, but I think he does know some."

"And of course he would have understood my talk with Ms. Renfrew, since that was in English." Saguru sighed in frustration. Inspector Graves was going to have his head when he learned about this. "Well, at least he wouldn't have gotten anything useful from me and Koizumi-san."

"What were you two arguing about?" Alex asked. "I could have sworn that Renfrew woman was almost smirking."

"Oh, it was nonsense."

"Oi," Akako warned. Then she blinked a few times, and stared at Saguru.

"Hakuba-kun, why do you look so blurry?"

That brought him up short. Suddenly his brain picked out bits of information he had missed in his earlier distraction. Akako's breathing was erratic, her cheeks flushed. Most telling of all, her pupils were so dilated her eyes looked black.

 _Oh bloody hell_.

Saguru forced himself to stay calm. It didn't really work. "Koizumi-kun, please don't be too alarmed, but I think you may have atropine poisoning."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Simon Perréal's nickname for Catherine Renfrew comes from Keat's La Belle Dame sans Merci.
> 
> And that's all the main suspects! This chapter took forever to write, partly because of all the plot points it had to hit and partly because of all the OCs.


	11. Applied Biochemistry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some highly dubious biochemistry. My chemistry knowledge is high school level, so I probably made some huge blunders.

_Hakuba is seriously over-socialized_ , Alex thought, as the detective dialed for an emergency helicopter for the second time in as many days. Akako took the news surprisingly well. She stared wide-eyed at her glass of ice tea, then carefully placed it away from her on the nearby table with hands that shook slightly. A sickening thought occurred to him.

"I'm sorry I brought that to you, Akako. This might be my fault."

"You don't know that," Ai said distractedly, staring at Akako. "Poisons show their effects at different rates depending on body type and dosage. It could have been tampered with long beforehand."

"Considering this is a house full of suspected poisoners I really shouldn't be surprised," Akako said, frowning. Her words were beginning to slur. "Still, why didn't I foresee this?"

Hakuba finished his call. "They said they'll be here in around thirty to forty minutes."

"That long?! Yesterday it took like fifteen."

"There's been an accident with some hikers on one of the mountains, and the helicopters are busy with them right now." Hakuba looked like he was trying very hard not to panic and not entirely succeeding.

"Okay, so we can do first aid in the meantime." Alex remembered the tasteless black liquid Hakuba had forced him to take when they thought he might have been poisoned. "Perréal's a practicing biochemist, there's no way he doesn't have activated charcoal in this house."

"There's some in his lab. I know where it is," Ai said quickly.

"Let's go there then," Akako said with obvious effort, swaying slightly where she stood. She tried to take a step forward, and collapsed.

Hakuba caught her as she fell. Together he and Alex propped Akako up between them, her head lolling on Hakuba's shoulder. Ai took the incriminating glass of ice tea and led them down the hallway, past two turns and up a small flight of stairs, ending up at a locked door.

"How good are you at picking locks?" she said, taking a small Swiss Army knife and some hair clips out of her pockets with one hand and passing them to Alex. The hair clips were thin metal strips, and of suspiciously ideal shape for the purpose. "That one's pretty sophisticated."

The locks on the other rooms he could have cracked with ease, but Simon Perréal must have wanted better security for his laboratory full of dangerous chemicals and important research. Alex tried for a few minutes with both tools, with no success. The door was steel-plated with reinforced hinges, so breaking it down wasn't an option, at least not with just him and Hakuba.

"I'm going to get the key from Perréal," he said, tucking the tools into his pocket. "You two stay here and try to keep her stabilized. I won't be more than five minutes."

"Be careful, Alex," Hakuba warned. "One of those adults poisoned her right under all of our noses. And if it's Perréal, he might not agree to give you the key."

Alex threw him a grim smile as he walked away. "Oh, I wasn't planning on asking."

* * *

Alex took the stairs three at a time and rushed back down the hallway. He slowed down as he approached the living room. All the suspects had re-congregated there after wandering—except for Simon Perréal.

"Where's Mr. Perréal?" He asked, and got a few shrugs in response. No one looked guilty, or nervous.

"Simon's vanished. I thought he was with your dear detective," Catherine Renfrew said, watching him with cool amber eyes as she munched on an apple.

Alex swore in his head. It would take much too long to search such a large house for their host by himself and then get the keys from him. He could tell the others and get them to help, but that meant letting their poisoner know he (or she) succeeded and allowing for the chance of more sabotage. Alex stared out the living room window, trying to think. He could see the curved concrete strips jutting out of the walls here as well.

Curved walls. Acoustics. _One of those adults poisoned her right under all of our noses_. Alex forced his expression to be pleasantly neutral, but underneath he was suddenly, incredibly, irrationally angry. One part of it was his own guilt; no matter what Ai said, if they didn't manage to save Akako her death would be his fault. Another was frustration at this case. Usually on his missions there was one clear megalomaniac to defeat. Chances were one of the people standing in this very room was their culprit, but how was he supposed to stop a cold-blooded killer who hid in plain sight?

Curved walls. Concrete strips. One hidden wolf in a flock of sheep. Inspiration struck Alex like twin forks of lightning.

He casually walked over to the main window and looked out, matching the irregular view outside to his mental layout of the house until he found the window which should belong to the lab and looked around and above it. Could he make this work?

"Do you need Mr. Perréal for something?" Andrea Beckley asked from behind him.

"Oh, I don't," he lied through his teeth. "Could you all follow me? Hakuba wants to try some sort of reenactment with you guys in the library. I guess we'll just have to get started without him."

He led the way back to the library, and even held the door open for everyone to go in, positioning his body so that it blocked the handle from view. As he had expected, the library door had a simple knob lock.

"I'm going to get Hakuba. Can you guys practice repeating your conversations of that night in the same formations until he gets here?" He smiled charmingly, saw that they started following his instructions, went out and closed the door.

Then he toggled the metal hair clip he'd already placed in the keyhole. Once the door was locked from the outside, he twisted the thin metal strips further until they broke, jamming the innards of the lock. There was no change in the murmur from the library, so his work had gone unnoticed.

That, combined with his false instructions should keep everyone out of the way for a while. Alex grabbed a large cutting board from the kitchen, then took another flight of stairs and went up two floors, navigating by his internal map until he found the rooftop balcony he'd seen from the living room. And there it was; a convex ribbon of concrete about two feet wide, shooting downwards at a steep angle. It cut the corner from the balcony to the lab windows a floor below like a playground slide.

_Only without handles, of unknown structural integrity, and it's dangling in bloody mid-air,_ the rational part of his brain told him as he levered himself over the curlicued iron railing, facing outward. _You know, it would be a lot easier to just find Perréal and ask for or steal the key_.

_That would take too long_.

_You just want to blow off steam. And possibly punish yourself at the same time._

Alex ignored his inner psychiatrist. He estimated the distances and angles, took a centering breath (his hands were perfectly steady), and jumped off from the balcony.

He crouched as he leapt, landing on the slab facing sideways with the cutting board beneath his feet. The surface of the concrete was smooth, and he slid down easily, gathering speed, knees bent and hands held out for balance almost like he was surfing. Just as he reached the end of the strip he jumped up, kicking against the slab for more force. The arc landed him straight onto the ledge of the lab windows.

Swiss Army knife to the mesh screen and a foot through the glass, and he was inside Perréal's lab. Just as he stood up in the dim, sterile room he heard a loud _crack_ from behind him. He looked back to see the concrete slab he used break off and crash to the ground. Well, hopefully Mr. Perréal won't notice that he broke a chunk off of his house.

Alex walked over and opened the door to a surprised Hakuba and Ai.

"Sorry I'm late."

* * *

"Weren't you supposed to get the keys?" Saguru asked distractedly as he carried a now barely conscious and fever-hot Akako into the room. His inner clock had ticked off every second of the torture that was waiting for Alex to return. Ai had spent almost all the time intensely looking through something on her phone—toxicology information, he guessed, based on the organic compound diagrams he'd glimpsed over her shoulder.

The fluorescent lights, once he turned them on, illuminated a clean, obsessively tidy and well stocked chemistry lab. There were two main workstations, each with its own sink. Cabinets of chemicals ran along the wall opposite the windows, and the countertop below it held racks of glass test tubes, beakers and petri dishes, all labeled. He recognized a microscope, centrifuge, a large fume hood for working with toxic dusts or vapors, and refrigeration and heating units for temperature sensitive materials.

"Couldn't find Perréal. This was faster," Alex replied tersely, grabbing the first aid kit. While Saguru brought Akako over to one of the workstations, Alex poured out some activated charcoal. Saguru carefully helped her drink it, a small sip at a time, and breathed a tiny bit easier once she finished the glass of the black liquid.

Then a shudder ran through her and Akako blindly pushed herself towards the sink. He barely had time to hold her in place and get her hair out of the way before she threw up the contents of her stomach. A moment later she started convulsing.

"Fuck." Saguru looked to Alex, any semblance of calm gone, but it was clear that neither of them knew what to do now.

"Diazepam." He looked down to see Ai hand him a small white pill from the first aid kit. "For the seizures. Give it to her with water after this round subsides. Alex, help me look through the cabinets—they're too tall for me to reach."

Perhaps it was the certainty in her voice, or a sign of their desperation, but the two boys found themselves following her instructions. Alex lifted Ai to a seated position on his shoulders and quickly started breaking into the cabinets.

"Look for physostigmine salicylate, or eserine salicylate or eserine sulfate," Ai told him.

"Why didn't the charcoal work?" Alex asked as he browsed through the labels.

"Activated charcoal absorbs toxins from the intestinal tract. But I think a large amount of atropine's already absorbed into her bloodstream, so even if she kept it down, it might not be much help."

They searched through all the cabinets to no avail. Alex then looked through the fridge and heated storage units while Ai took the racks on the counter, with equal lack of success.

"Nothing," Alex reported in frustration.

"Not quite nothing," Ai said thoughtfully, staring at a rack of Perréal's experiments and muttering to herself. "Amine...esermethole...I guess there's no help for it. The only way we can do it fast enough is if we parallelize the process. Alex, Hakuba-kun, how much chem lab experience do you guys have?"

"Uhm, 10th grade U.S high school level?" Alex tried to remember. "Colour changing experiments, basic titrations?"

"I've done some first and second year undergraduate experiments," Saguru offered. "I'm pretty comfortable with titrations, and acid-base reactions."

"Ever worked in a fume hood? Column chromatography?"

"Fume hood yes. No column chromatography, but I've done paper chromatography before. Alex probably has too. It's the one where you put different inks on a piece of paper, apply water, and identify what they are from the colour trail they leave."

"The standards of high school education these days," Ai said dryly. "Well, at least you both have steady hands." She took a deep breath.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. Hakuba-kun, react the esermethole in that beaker with boron tribromide, followed by methyl isocyanate to get physostigmine. I'll calculate the exact volumes required in a second, and give you more detailed steps. We all work in the fume hood and with full safety gear, because the methyl isocyanate is _extremely_ dangerous. Since the fume hood is pretty big, I'll set up a silica column for purification while you make the physostigmine, and Alex, you help me with the chromatography and keep an eye on Koizumi-kun."

It was a bizarre, nightmarish version of one of Saguru's chemistry experiments. Only instead of a balding, reedy professor they were following orders from a girl three feet shorter than they were and half their age. Once they were all wearing safety goggles and latex gloves and the air was filled with the background hum of the running fume hood Saguru started working, carefully mixing a test tube of clear, colourless liquid into a beaker of identical-looking clear, colourless liquid. Meanwhile, Ai clamped a glass burette to a stand under the hood beside him, then skillfully plugged the drip end with a small ball of glass wool, filled the column with tiny translucent silica gel beads, and topped it all off with a thin layer of sand. She had to stand on a stool to reach the level of the counter, and every now and then she gave out instructions or corrections for the two teens in a clear voice. Alex ran back and forth between them and the cabinets, fetching droppers, glass slides and various chemicals as Ai requested, trying not to get in either of their way.

"Ai, she's lost consciousness," Saguru called out in a tight voice. "Also, I think I'm done."

"Leave the beaker here, move her closer, and prepare a syringe," Ai instructed, finishing her setup. "Alex, help me with the purification."

Alex watched her steadily pour the contents of Hakuba's beaker into the burette column. As it filtered down through the silica, Ai collected the purified solution in a series of test tubes as it dripped out the other end, a few milliliters at a time. Following her directions, Alex sampled each test tube she finished in order with a small dropper, putting a drop from the test tube onto a glass slide and then adding a drop of red potassium ferricyanide followed by yellow iron chloride.

On his eighth test, the mixture on the slide instantly turned blue. They had hit the purified physostigmine. Alex methodically set aside those tubes, each containing tiny amounts of the precious liquid until Ai judged they had enough and added them to a final beaker of solution to form physostigmine salicylate. The fruit of all their labor was a small beaker filled with maybe 100mL of a liquid as clear and colourless as water.

They all held their breaths as Saguru carefully injected Akako with a syringe of the antidote. A small eternity seemed to pass in hushed silence (four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, ticked his inner clock), then Akako's thin breathing evened out, she dazedly blinked once, twice, and Saguru was hit with an overwhelming wave of relief.

* * *

Now that the immediate crisis was averted, Alex felt the effects of his adrenaline rush fade. He took off his safety goggles and gloves and sat down on the floor, his tiredness from pulling an all-nighter having suddenly decided to double. Hakuba slumped on a stool in shared relief. Making the antidote didn't require the athletic prowess jumping from the balcony had, but doing so under extreme pressure demanded a mental acuity and precision that was equally nerve-wracking.

Through the broken window of the lab, he could hear far off voices of mixed confusion and outrage, carried by the house's concrete feelers.

"I think the people I locked in the library finally got out," he said, and explained his actions at Hakuba and Ai's looks.

"That's a rather extreme way to ensure we'd be uninterrupted," Ai commented.

"So Perréal's vanished?" Hakuba mused aloud. "He could have hidden himself away. Or—"

"—Or whoever poisoned Koizumi-kun did something to him as well," Ai completed. "Perréal is a biochemist, after all. We just used his lab to foil the killer's plans; he could have as well."

"That is one very fast acting poisoner." Alex looked at the almost-fatal glass of iced tea Ai had placed on one of the workstation tables. "Still, why would someone want to kill Akako? Because she's related to the Mansfields?"

"Maybe...There could be another reason though." Hakuba didn't take his eyes off the girl in question as he hesitantly told them about Akako's predictions.

Ai was skeptical. "You know hallucinations are a side effect of atropine poisoning, right?"

"I didn't say I believed her. What matters is whether anyone listening thought she could have been a threat."

"Akako _was_ probing the Carmichael's in the living room while you were questioning Ms. Renfrew," Alex remembered.

Ai snorted. "She was doing an amazing job of vamping them both for information. That fiancée of Carmichael's was practically trying to set her on fire through glaring. Beckley'd have to be very insecure to try to kill her for that though."

"Who had a chance to tamper with her drink?" Hakuba asked. "Before and during our talk?"

Alex threw his mind back. "Perréal for one – he got all our drinks, and Akako was the only person who wanted iced tea. Everyone was moving around a lot after you left to interrogate Ms. Renfrew; you'd have to question them all to be sure."

"Oh, I intend to." There was raw anger in Hakuba's voice. Apparently his classmate's poisoning had turned this case personal.

Alex turned his head at the sound of distant sirens, and even more faintly, the whirl of helicopter blades. "Sounds like the cavalry has finally arrived."

"Thank you, Ai-kun," Hakuba suddenly said in a rush. "I have no idea how you knew how to do all... _that_ ," he gestured at the collection of test tubes and the silica column still in the fume hood, "but we wouldn't have been able to get her to the hospital in time without your help." Alex nodded. He may have been the one who got them through the door (via breaking the window), but Ai had somehow managed to synthesize an antidote from scratch.

Ai's expression darkened. "If you think so, then please do something for me."

"Of course."

"When they ask what happened, Hakuba-kun, don't mention my part. You were the one who converted the esermethole to physostigmine, with Alex's help."

"What?!" They both stared at her. "Why?"

"I don't want to be known as the one who did it." To Alex's surprise, she actually sounded desperate. "Not with my current circumstances. It would help your credit with the police as well, Hakuba-kun. Please don't tell anyone else, other than Agasa-hakase."

"Haibara-kun, you want me to lie to the authorities, and take credit for your work. Incredible work, though I'm no expert in biochemistry."

_The research is very important_ , Alex remembered her saying when they had tried to persuade her to leave Perréal's house. He had a sudden flash of intuition. "Ai, Pf. Agasa isn't the one who's interested in Perréal's work, is he?" he said slowly. It was a leap, but— " _You_ are."

The look on her face confirmed it. "Haibara-kun, if your guardian is in any way taking advantage—" Hakuba asked in concern.

"No, no, it's not like that at all!" For the first time, Ai sounded close to panicking. "Agasa-hakase is a good man, believe me. He is brilliant, and he does know quite a bit of biochemistry, but his main interests are in engineering. When I said I wanted to come here, he offered to contact Perréal and cover for me. Simon Perréal would never have agreed to discuss his research with a little girl."

"I can't have this be known, for my own private reasons. If you feel any respect or gratitude for me at all then please, focus on your case and leave this be." She looked at the poisoned glass of iced tea. "It would be best if no one knew I was in this lab at all, but my fingerprints are on that glass, and I don't want to wipe it off in case the poisoner left something incriminating. Oh, that reminds me, we should clean my prints off the chemistry equipment and put Hakuba-kun's on instead. So as far as everyone else knows, I only helped watch over Koizumi-kun. You and Alex made the antidote."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a comment or review! Constructive criticism, theories and wild guesses all accepted!


	12. Critical Mass

"We'll do it," Alex said, looking at Ai.

"Alex, you're talking about lying to the police about an active criminal investigation, and stealing Haibara-kun's credit," Saguru repeated in protest. He could picture his father's disapproval, and his mother's lecture about the historical erasure and intellectual theft of the work of female scientists. "Could you imagine—"

"Oh no, I _couldn't_ imagine why someone would have their own reasons to hide their abilities, or to avoid the limelight," Alex broke in sarcastically. "Can't you see she's still scared of something?"

Oh. Well, aside from the shame at his inconsideration, that comparison opened up disturbing new ideas about Ai's un-childlike capabilities. Saguru pushed them away for later thought. "I apologize, Haibara-kun. We'll do as you asked." He walked over to the fume hood and wiped the equipment that Ai had touched clean.

"Thank you. Both of you," Ai said quietly once he was done.

Akako stirred. "Hakuba-kun?...Haibara-kun?" she said hoarsely. Her eyes focused on Alex, and she began babbling in Japanese. Something about Alex and...dangerous ash trees in a forest? And meeting a man with a scar on his neck. Obviously she was still suffering the hallucinatory effects of the atropine.

"You're safe, Koizumi-kun," he said softly. "Come on, let's get you to the hospital."

* * *

The living room, when they all headed back to it, was a scene of mayhem. The police had arrived, led by Inspector Graves. The Carmichael's were indignantly complaining to him about being locked in the library on one side, while an un-vanished Simon Perréal gesticulated excitedly on the other, one hand clutched to the back of his head. Catherine Renfrew was the only one undisturbed; the woman was leaned back on the couch sipping a glass of white wine, watching it all as if she didn't have a care in the world.

They all only shut up at the sight of the barely conscious Akako, whom Hakuba carried out to the waiting helicopter with Alex's help. As they passes Ms. Renfrew, Alex thought he caught a flicker of _something_ — empathy? weariness? regret?—on the woman's face, but a moment later it was gone and her expression smoothed to a winter lake stillness.

"I will need to resume interviewing everyone present. Some new questions about a recent development have arisen as well," Hakuba said to the suspects, in the most icily polite tone Alex had ever heard. "For starters, where were you for the past twenty-seven minutes, Mr. Perréal?"

"Passed out on the floor of my own wine cellar," Perréal answered. He sounded genuinely indignant. "I wanted to get a bottle of Sauternes, to accompany the cheese. Someone must have hit me on the head."

"None of _us_ would attack a man in his own home," William Carmichael said, then glared at Alex. "That boy, on the other hand—"

"Father! Be a little more...circumspect, will you?" Joshua Carmichael protested.

"Josh dear, he did lock us all up in the library," Andrea Beckley reminded him, one arm looped through his. "Anyways, what happened to that girl?"

"Alex responded to the emergency as he thought best. He's not the one under suspicion here," Hakuba said. The barely concealed anger in his voice returned everyone's attention to him. Still, Alex would just derail the interrogations by remaining here.

"Ms. Renfrew, let's finish our chat from earlier." He could compare notes with Hakuba later.

* * *

Now that the library obviously could not be used (aside from the eavesdropping issue the door lock was no longer functional), Saguru decided to just complete his questioning in the living room with Inspector Graves. Perréal was downstairs showing some officers where he was supposedly struck down.

The two Carmichaels and Ms. Beckley showed various mixtures of tenseness and irritation in their expressions. They had been far more annoyed initially, before Saguru informed them that they were suspects in another poisoning with the harshest civility he could manage. Normally he would have some regrets about taking his repressed anger out on other targets, but given that it was likely one of these three had nearly killed Akako Saguru thought it was the least they deserved.

"Could you think of anyone who would want to kill you?" He asked William Carmichael. Logically speaking, Akako was more likely to have been targeted because of her relation to the Mansfields, but he should still look into all possible reasons. They all looked genuinely shocked at his seemingly unrelated question.

"I've made enemies during my business years, of course, but I'm retired now," Carmichael Sr. answered after a pause.

"But you are still a very wealthy man. I presume as your only son, Mr. Joshua will inherit everything if you die?"

"How does this have anything to do with the poisoning?" Andrea Beckley protested.

"A development in Ms. Koizumi's poisoning raised the possibility that Mr. William Carmichael could be the next target," he said simply. "As such, I am investigating the idea."

"As my eldest and by tradition, Joshua is and has always been my heir," Carmichael Sr. said coolly.

Saguru caught the implication in his unusual wording. "Is there any reason why he wouldn't be?"

A beat, then Joshua sighed and said, "You may as well tell him, Father. No matter how much you may wish to save face it's not exactly a secret." Then to Saguru: "My father and I have not always seen eye to eye. We have very different personalities and expectations, and they often clashed. Unfortunately it took the death of my younger brother to reconcile them. It was what Eric would have wanted." Both he and his father's expressions darkened at the mention of his brother's death.

"What good does digging up old wounds do?" Ms. Beckley said, stepping in front of her fiancé protectively.

"Very well then." He changed the subject again. "Do any of you speak Japanese?"

"I know some," William Carmichael said. "Mainly for business purposes. Andrea also knows some, since she's worked before in Japan for a short while."

"She and I first met there when I was on vacation," Joshua Carmichael added, with a fond look at Ms. Beckley. "About two and a half years ago? I never got past how to say 'Hello' and 'Thank you' though."

Well, all that could be verified relatively easily enough. Saguru got a look from Graves; the Inspector was obviously impatient at all the seeming non-sequiturs.

"So, Mr. Carmichael, you were the only one who stayed in the living room the entire time? What about everyone else?..."

* * *

"I thought we had nothing left to talk about." Ms. Renfrew and Alex had moved to the balcony again. They both had a clear view of the living room, where from everyone else's body language it looked like Hakuba had begun interrogating the Carmichaels, with Inspector Graves playing good cop.

"I can think of several topics." Alex matched the coolness of her tone. "For one, how did you know you could eavesdrop on the library from here? And how do you know Japanese?"

"I travel. The design of this house is hardly unique. There's a building in Dubai with similar architecture," she answered listlessly.

Then Alex felt it again; a tingle on the back of his neck, the pressing sensation of being watched. He looked around, craning his neck and peering over the balcony railing, but he didn't see anyone except some uniformed officers who were methodically searching the outside of the mansion.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ms. Renfrew blink and also look around, following his example. A moment later the feeling was gone again, but her behaviour made him realize something.

"You know, I've noticed something unusual about you," he said slowly. No reaction. He pressed on. "Almost every single adult meeting us for the first time on this case has doubted Hakuba's competence, even if they tried not to show it. The Mansfields, Inspector Graves, and I think Mr. Perréal is playing up the gracious host act. But not you. Why?" It was subtle, but Ms. Renfrew had treated both Hakuba and Alex as if they were full adults and professionals from the beginning. Questioning them on the basis of their age would have been one way to stop them searching her house, but she hadn't gone for the easy target.

"Irrelevant."

"I can be the judge of that," Alex stubbornly insisted. He remembered the way Ms. Renfrew had coldly analyzed him in her garden; that had been a threat assessment, plain and simple. "I understand Hakuba has a good reputation in stuff like this, but I'm just a teenager dragged along for the ride."

He stared her down, waiting for her to realize he wasn't going to let this go.

"You know, I grew up in an impoverished part of New Orleans," she finally answered. "They called it the Murder Capital of the United States, but the vast majority of crimes are concentrated in the poorer areas. Gang wars, prostitution, drugs. I've seen a young boy slit a grown man's throat, then go home with flowers for his mother. One quickly learns not to judge based on appearances." Her voice remained lifeless, but her eyes sharpened slightly. "I know a human weapon when I see one."

Alex refused to let her see that her bolt struck home. "And which parts of what you said was actually true?"

"The essentials." She looked to the sky, at the yellow speck that was the helicopter flying Akako away. "So the killer struck again."

"Someone tried to poison Akako." Alex watched her intently, but her face was blank as she took another sip of white wine. Was she probing for information? "You don't sound worried."

"Why would I be? I couldn't have done it."

Alex opened his mouth to say that wasn't what he'd meant, then closed it again. She was _right_. Ms. Renfrew had been in the library with Hakuba when Akako first got her drink, and later when she returned she had never ventured to that part of the living room. He had been watching her like a hawk the entire time.

Catherine Renfrew was the only suspect with a rock solid alibi for Akako's poisoning. And Alex himself had given it to her.

Okay, time to switch tactics. "What do you think of the others? I've seen your portraits; you must be good at observing people."

"Lead with honey before vinegar next time, boy."

"I'm serious," he persisted. "Some part of you is interested in this mystery, underneath all that indifference. That's why you listened in on Hakuba's conversation in the library. Tell me what you think."

She sighed, and pointedly let her gaze wander over the group in the living room. "That Beckley woman genuinely loves her fiancé. Carmichael and his son don't get along, though they pretend to since they're all the family each other has now. Simon is being dramatic, as usual. Is that enough?"

"Why don't you like Mr. Perréal?"

"Other than how he'll hit on anything pretty in a skirt?"

"Was he like that with Amelia at the party?"

"A young, attractive and impressionable redhead? What do you think?"

Alex supposed that to a young woman, Mr. Perréal would be extremely attractive—handsome, charismatic, intelligent and well-off to boot. To most women, actually. "You're being pretty harsh on him."

"Simon's all surfaces. And he still can't take a hint to shove off, even after almost twenty years."

Alex stared. At least she was actually talking to him now, but... "If you keep on like that, you're going to die old and alone."

To his shock, Ms. Renfrew _laughed_. The unlikely sound rang out, clear and mirthless. "What?"

Her brief smile was more a tired upturn of the lips. It was still the most emotion he'd ever seen from the woman. "That's the joke. Everyone dies alone."

* * *

"You set all this up?" Simon Perréal looked over the chemistry equipment in the fume hood. When he returned his gaze to Saguru it held genuine respect for the first time.

"I didn't do it alone. Alex helped with the chromatography." He wasn't, technically speaking, lying.

"I'm sorry about your window, by the way, Mr. Perréal. And, uhm, the chunk of your house I broke," Alex apologized, trying to steer the conversation away.

"It's nothing. I'm insured, and you did what you had to do." Perréal waved away the property damage. He also seemed to have forgotten about his earlier indignation over his injury. "And you used the ethermethole I generated from aziridinium triflate. Very nice."

The Carmichaels and Catherine Renfrew had left after their statements were taken, and Saguru guessed that Ai was hiding in her room. He was nervous about passing off their little deception in front of an actual biochemist, but it wasn't like they could keep Perréal out of his own laboratory.

"Is it a complicated process?" Inspector Graves asked, glancing at the group of test tubes and beakers.

"Oh, no. Esermethole is easily converted to physostigmine, which is the antidote to atropine poisoning. Demethylation with boron tribromide followed by carbamylation with methyl isocyanate. Relatively straightforward." He gestured at the silica column. "No, what's impressive is that he managed to do it so _fast_. And that column chromatograph is a thing of beauty: perfectly sized plug, evenly packed silica, smooth layer of sand."

"It's really not—"

"Don't sell yourself short, kid." He turned to Graves. "You know, it takes years to master setting up a chromatograph like that so quickly. Did you learn that at Hakuba Labs?"

"Uhm, yeah." Saguru tried to change the topic to something that wasn't his non-existent chemistry brilliance. "I was wondering, Mr. Perréal, since you're a biochemist. Why do you think the poisoner chose to use atropine?"

That finally got Perréal's attention. "Hmm. If I were to poison someone, hypothetically speaking of course, I wouldn't use it."

"No?"

"Every hospital carries the antidote, since a few kids accidentally eat nightshade berries every summer, and the symptoms are easy to diagnose. And it's not very fast-acting, comparatively speaking. There are several other poisons that kill instantaneously."

"As for why someone would...I would say because of how easy it is to make. It's also chemically very stable. Other compounds can react with almost everything or break down quickly, but atropine can be mixed with water, or alcohol, and it'll stay potent for a long time. And nightshade berries taste sweet and not bitter, unlike poisons such as cyanide, so it could be easier to disguise as well."

"You've done some research," Alex noted.

"What can I say? I have a professional interest." An actor's smile slid back across Perréal's face. "If I'm suspected of something, I would like to know more about what it is."

* * *

Alex and Hakuba headed to the hospital after the questionings were finished, but though Akako's condition had stabilized and she was lucid they wouldn't admit visitors. Once the two teens returned to their hotel, they finally had a chance to compare notes thoroughly.

"So Perréal has a small bruise on the back of his head, and there's some disturbed dust in wine cellar where he was supposedly knocked down," Alex said, reading through Hakuba's notes on the matter. "And I noticed some dust on his clothes as well. Still, I wouldn't call that conclusive evidence one way or the other."

No one admitted to tampering with or even handling Akako's drink, aside from Perréal who had fetched it. A search of their persons also turned up empty of anything incriminating. But under a bush within an arms throw of the living room windows they found a glass vial wiped clean of fingerprints, containing a few stray drops of liquid.

"While you were talking with Ms. Renfrew on the balcony the first time you both had a clear view of the living room. Do you remember who left and when?"

"I think Simon Perréal left first, and then Andrea Beckley a few minutes later. I remember Beckley came back just when you two started raising your voices in the library. I think Joshua Carmichael was on his phone right before she came back, and he left right after," Alex recalled. "William Carmichael stayed in the living room the entire time, as far as I know of."

"That matches everyone else's statements. Andrea Beckley says she went to the bathroom to freshen her makeup. Joshua Carmichael says he left the living room to take a phone call, and Perréal says he went to fetch that white wine," Hakuba mused. "The problem here is that almost _everyone_ had the chance to tamper with Koizumi's drink. Except for Catherine Renfrew. Are you sure she couldn't have done it?"

"Positive. She was talking to you in the library, then with me and Perréal away from Akako, and then with me again on the balcony. She never had the chance to go anywhere near her glass." Alex was reluctant to eliminate Ms. Renfrew, but facts were facts, no matter how much she still creeped him out.

"Well, that's one suspect down I suppose," Hakuba sighed.

Alex looked at the annotated timeline Hakuba had constructed. Based on the combined testimonies, they'd established that Joshua Carmichael had been gone for approximately ten minutes, Andrea Beckley just over five. William Carmichael had never left the living room, and neither did Catherine Renfrew, once she had returned from her balcony talk with Alex. Hakuba even had the officers time how long it would take to reach the bathroom and the wine cellar from the living room (2 minutes and 3 minutes, respectively), but even that wasn't as detailed as the detective's own timeline of events:

_2:00 pm Arrival at Perréal's house._

_2:11-2:27pm Interview with Catherine Renfrew (unfruitful)._

_2:32pm Began talk with Koizumi._

_[_ _Perréal and Beckley leaves living room between these times]_

_2:36pm Began arguing with Koizumi; Alex & Ms. Renfrew heard raised voices from balcony._

_[Beckley returns and J. Carmichael leaves living room_ _between these times_ _]_

_2:41pm Discovered that Koizumi was poisoned._

_2:47pm Alex finds all suspects returned in living room._

"I would have put it down to the second, but I was slightly distracted and didn't want to be inaccurate," Hakuba noted. "I'm also going to have to double check with Haibara-kun about what Koizumi-kun was talking about in the living room."

"Speaking of Ai...I know the case is more important right now, but what the hell is up with her?" His own desire to find out more about Ai wasn't very different from the curiosity which led Hakuba to dig up his past, Alex knew, but he couldn't help it. "Being a child prodigy is one thing, but eight year olds aren't supposed to be that _mature_. And that's not even going into where she could have learned to set up a chromatograph well enough to get a professional biochemist raving."

"I have been puzzled by that as well," Hakuba admitted. "You can't pick up lab skills like that from a textbook; it takes practice. Years of it, according to Perréal, but that's clearly impossible given her age."

"...You don't suppose the Japanese secret service could also be trying to do what MI6 did with me?" Alex finally voiced the fear which had been incubating since that afternoon. "I know the CIA made an attempt at creating their own teenage spy, and it failed spectacularly."

Hakuba shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense for the Public Security Intelligence Agency to use a child too young to have any reasonable chance of defending herself in a physical fight. Or to have that child focus her studies on biochemistry to such an extent." He looked at Alex. "I know Haibara-kun wants us to leave all this alone, but...I would feel a lot more reassured after making sure her guardian really is on the level. After this case is over."

It was a fine line to walk, but Alex remembered the way Ai looked after she received that text during their kidnapping, and again when she was persuading them to cover for her; an old, weary, _adult_ fear. No child should ever look like that. "After this case is over," Alex agreed.

* * *

Alex decided to turn in early at ten. It had been a long and exhausting day, even without accounting for his lack of sleep the night before. He had every intention of getting a full night's rest, any nightmares be damned.

His resolve was broken less than two hours later, when a pounding at his bedroom door woke him from a fit-full dream of being chased by pale marble statues with death-cold hands around a concrete obstacle course.

He opened his door to find Hakuba half-changed into hound's-tooth patterned pyjamas, cell phone clutched in one hand. The look on the other teen's face made him swallow back a comment about his clothes. "What happened?" Alex asked instead.

"William Carmichael's dead. They just found him poisoned in his study." Hakuba paused. "And apparently, we may have another impossible murder on our hands."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: One more chapter for the mystery and then it's time for the reveal! Really hope I didn't leave any gaping plot holes.
> 
> Many thanks to Caladium, for a lovely review and for pointing out a recurring grammar mistake I've been making.
> 
> If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a comment or review!


	13. Turning Point

Alex quickly changed, and mentally waved any chances of immediate rest good-bye. Less than ten minutes later he and Hakuba were on their way towards William Carmichael's house, which was about twenty minutes outside of town.

"I thought you argued Inspector Graves into giving Carmichael guards," Alex said. It had been a point of contention between the two; Lymstock being so small, the Inspector had limited resources and actually had to call in more officers from nearby towns. After Akako's poisoning, he had quite reasonably wanted any extra officers looking after the Mansfields. Hakuba had a hell of a time convincing him to spare two officers to guard William Carmichael 'on a hunch'.

"I did. They were the ones who found the body and called it in," Hakuba replied tersely as he pulled into the driveway of a somber two storey Victorian house. There were several police cars parked nearby already.

Inspector Graves met them at the open door. The older man looked almost as tired as Alex felt. "They've removed the body already, but from all appearances it's atropine again. Forensics are going through the study right now; they should be done soon."

Alex looked around. Everyone he could see was a copper, himself and Hakuba excepted. "Joshua Carmichael and his fiancée aren't here?"

Graves shook his head. "They've been staying together at a hotel in town. I informed them of the news, but told them to stay put for now."

"Do they have alibis?" Hakuba asked quickly.

"Yes, both spent the evening at a friend's house."

"What about Mr. Perréal and Ms. Renfrew?" Alex asked.

"Those two both said they stayed at home. We'll have to ask Mr. Perréal's houseguests if they can corroborate his statement, but Ms. Renfrew lives alone so there's no witness for her." Graves looked at Hakuba. "By the way, Forensics matched the atropine in that Koizumi girl's glass of ice tea to the poison used in Amelia Mansfield's murder. They're definitely from the same batch."

Hakuba's eyes narrowed in interest. "So what's impossible about this case?"

"You should hear the whole story from the guards who found Carmichael. It's like a bloody Agatha Christie yarn." They entered the living room and Graves waved over two plainclothed police constables, a sandy haired, rail thin man and a dark skinned woman with impressive biceps and the air of a hunting dog. "Nash, Turner, repeat your reports to these two."

The officers looked surprised that 'these two' were teenage boys, but after a glare from Graves they complied. "I'm Nash, she's Turner," the sandy haired man said. "We were assigned to guard William Carmichael in case of an attempt on his life."

"Carmichael lives alone with a man named Henry Lemmer, who's been his butler and cook for decades. You could tell Carmichael wasn't happy to have us here, but he invited us to share his dinner anyways. Probably guest etiquette or something. It was roast lamb, by the way, cooked by Lemmer, and it was delicious, but none of us had any wine to go with it."

PC Turner took over. "After dinner Carmichael went into his study, and Nash and I set up posts on both ends of the hallway so we both had a clear view of the entire corridor, including the study door."

"After about half an hour Carmichael left the study. I followed him to the wine cellar in the basement, where he picked out an unopened bottle of red wine," she continued. "He said he'd been drinking a glass with or after dinner every day for the past ten years, and if he couldn't trust a bottle he made himself he couldn't trust anything in this world. He showed it to me too—the top had one of those fancy wax seals, like a stamped coat of arms, and I would be willing to swear in a court of law that it had never been opened."

"When Carmichael and Turner returned he called for a bottle opener and a clean glass, which Lemmer brought to him on a tray," PC Nash continued. "I examined both opener and wine glass, and both were dry and looked perfectly normal as far as I could see. Carmichael took the tray and the still sealed bottle of wine into the study with him, and bolted the door."

"Turner and I resumed our posts. After an hour with no disturbances, we thought it strange that neither of us had heard anything from the study. Turner knocked and called out to Carmichael and didn't get a response. We were worried, and broke down the study door together. We found Carmichael dead in his chair, with an open bottle and an empty glass of wine in front of him. He was alone in the room, and the windows were closed and bolted."

* * *

"...I suppose secret passages are out of the question?" Alex commented without much hope after Turner and Nash finished their statements.

"This house isn't that old," Inspector Graves said mildly. "And if there is, it should have turned up in our search by now."

"How long will it take to match the poison here to previous samples?" Hakuba asked.

"Possibly indefinitely. We'd have to find the blasted thing first." Graves' voice was drier than a desert.

"What?"

"There is no poison in the wine bottle. I had Forensics test it first thing. The drops left in the wine glass tested positive for atropine, but the wine in the bottle itself is clean." Graves rubbed his eyes. "And there isn't enough left in the wine glass for fancy chemical analysis."

"...I hate poisoning cases," Alex muttered, and got sympathetic looks from Graves and the two constables. "Could it be suicide this time?"

"That's certainly a possibility, but I don't want to say that's what happened so soon." Just then two men and a woman, all in pale blue overalls came out of the hallway and went over to them. The lone woman had cropped black hair, and was carefully carrying two bottles of wine in her gloved hands. "Larwood, please tell me you found something."

The three forensics officers looked at each other. "If someone came in from the window or a secret passage I'll eat my certification," Larwood said. "But I want to double check something." She held out the two wine bottles. They were Red Zinfandels from the same vintage, Alex noted; both had been aged four years and had labels that said 'Crécerelle' in fancy script. That was the name of Carmichael's vineyard, he recalled. One bottle held much more wine than the other. "Turner, which one of these was the bottle you saw Carmichael fetch from the basement?" Larwood asked.

PC Turner looked over the two bottles, then firmly pointed to the one in her left hand, which was the one with more wine. "That one. I remember noticing the label was slightly wrinkled in the lower right corner."

Larwood relaxed infinitesimally. "I think that solves one mystery then." She held up the bottle in her right, which was half empty. "This bottle was the one found on Carmichael's desk, which tested clean. _This_ one," she held up the other bottle that Turner had selected, "is the one he brought into the study, and it tested positive for atropine."

Graves narrowed his eyes in thought. "Ling, Connor, head down to the wine cellar and look around there. See if there's any evidence someone could have broken in or tampered with one of the wine bottles. Larwood, show us the study."

* * *

Once they had put on overalls and gloves to avoid contaminating the crime scene, Larwood brought the group to the study, which was of the old-fashioned and obvious-bachelor's-den variety, all leather and dark wood paneling. A massive oak desk piled with papers and books was placed against the east wall, with an expensive office chair in front of it. There was a roughly body-shaped chalk outline drawn on the black leather of the chair, and a lone wine glass stood on the desk.

"Carmichael's body was found sprawled in his chair," Larwood informed them unnecessarily. She placed the half-empty wine bottle besides the glass. "That is what the desk looked like when Nash and Turner entered the study." She walked over to the opposite wall, and opened a small metal wine cabinet holding several bottles of wine, and slid the other bottle in her hand to an empty space in the back. "And this is where we found the poisoned bottle of wine, in this spot here."

"How did you know where to look?" Alex asked.

"Just a hunch." She pointed to the half-empty bottle on the desk. "I thought it strange that one man would be able to drink that much red wine in under one hour, since Turner said the bottle was full when he entered the room. When that bottle tested clean and we saw this wine cabinet with another, fuller bottle with the same label..."

"You wondered if it was possible someone could have swapped the two bottles. Good thinking," Graves said approvingly. "What about fingerprints?"

She shook her head. "Both bottles had been wiped clean. There's multiple sets of fingerprints on the other surfaces, which is to be expected, but it's going to take a while to sort them all out."

Hakuba walked over to the windows in the room, opposite the door, which were closed and latched behind plush velvet curtains. "No holes in the window panes or frame, or signs of tampering with the latches," he noted, then carefully opened them and looked out. "No footprints in the flowerbeds below either. Any fingerprints here?"

"A few clear sets matching the victim's, and some partials from the butler. Nothing unexpected."

"So either Carmichael chose a very annoying way of committing suicide, or we have a locked room murder on our hands," Graves sighed.

Alex went over to the wine cabinet and examined the fatal wine bottle. It looked completely normal, the dark green glass smooth and unbroken, with no deep scratches or marks where someone could have cut a piece out and replaced it.

"I don't think it's suicide," Alex said, frowning as he turned the bottle over in his gloved hands. It was the easiest explanation for everything, but it felt wrong. "Not unless you think he committed the other two poisonings as well, and suddenly decided to off himself in a fit of remorse or something."

"Those bottles were wiped clean and swapped, and the simplest and most likely explanation is that Carmichael did it himself," Graves reminded him. "I don't like it either, but unless we figure out how someone could have put poison into a sealed wine bottle, or enter a locked room without either Carmichael or the two police officers who were standing guard noticing, we're stuck."

* * *

Visiting Carmichael's wine cellar didn't shine any light on the mystery; if anything the fog grew murkier. The wine bottled at Crécerelle all had a ring of gold foil wrapped tightly over and around the neck like the plastic seal on a medicine bottle, topped off with the signet of a small kestrel stamped in plum coloured wax.

"I don't see how anyone could insert poison into the bottle without leaving a noticeable mark," Alex said with a frown as he looked around the dim cellar. Saguru noted that nothing showed signs of unexpected disturbance, though it was harder to tell here than it had been at Simon Perréal's house. Carmichael kept his cellar clean and free of dust, which was good from a housekeeping perspective but not as good from a crime solving one.

"The foil and seal were both intact when Carmichael brought up the bottle?" Inspector Graves asked PC Turner.

Both she and PC Nash nodded unhappily. "I remember seeing the ring of gold around the neck," Nash said.

"Did Mr. Carmichael always drink his own wine after dinner?" Saguru asked Henry Lemmer, a small, grey-haired man with bird-like dark eyes.

"Not always, but often. He usually alternated between several wines, but this week he's started trying out the Crécerelle from that year, since he deemed it had aged enough," the butler answered. Saguru looked at the rack the fatal bottle came from—a row of identical vintages with two empty spots at the far right. William Carmichael obviously liked to pick out bottles in order. PC Turner confirmed that the poisoned bottle had been in the second spot, which meant the first used to hold the half empty bottle used in the switcheroo.

"You can't buy this wine in stores, can you?" he asked.

"No, no, Mr. Carmichael kept it for his own private collection, and occasionally gave a few bottles out to friends and business partners."

Saguru showed him the list of suspects. "Have any of these people visited this house before?"

Lemmer squinted at the page, then pulled out a thin pair of wire-framed reading glasses and peered through them at the names. "Mr. Joshua helped Mr. Carmichael move to this house for the summer two weeks ago. He and his fiancée had dinner with Mr. Carmichael twice since then, but both times were in town, not here. Mr. Oliver Mansfield came once to invite him to his cocktail party. I don't recognize anyone else, but I would have to consult my housekeeping journal to be sure."

"Could you please do that? Actually, give us a list of everyone who's visited this house since Carmichael moved here this summer as well, if possible."

"Mr. Carmichael rarely receives visitors here in the summer, but I will go fetch my notes."

Saguru watched the butler walk away, thinking. There was no sign of anyone breaking into the study from outside. They would have to double check everyone's alibis, but so far everything pointed to William Carmichael being alone in his study when he died. He couldn't think of any method of tampering with a sealed bottle that wouldn't leave a trace, either.

He stared at the bottle of red wine they had brought up from the cellar. Poison and wine. That was the common factor in all three cases. But they were in all other respects so different. Akako and Amelia Mansfield were poisoned in plain sight in a group of people, Carmichael while he was locked away alone. Both the Mansfield and Carmichael poisoning looked to have been carefully premeditated, while Akako's must have been done on the spur of the moment—none of the suspects knew she had been coming to Perréal's house. And there was one glaringly obvious suspect for Carmichael's poisoning, but that person couldn't have been involved in the other two incidents...

 _I know you don't believe me, Hakuba-kun, but couldn't you be a little more open-minded?_ Saguru shook away Akako's words. He needed to visit her in the hospital later, possibly with flowers, but she couldn't have predicted Carmichael's death the way she said she did. It wasn't logical.

 _Human beings aren't logical. No matter how much we may attempt to be, emotions like love or hatred rarely follow reason_. Those words could have been his mother's, or Akako's, or maybe even Kuroba's. He stared at the bottle on the table. Poison and wine. Poison in wine.

An idea suddenly blossomed. It was rather outlandish, but...it was not impossible. Just highly implausible. Or was it? Saguru traced the implications in his mind's eye, linking together fragments of remembered conversation. The picture was fuzzy in some places, and _Good Heavens finding the evidence is going to be a complete pain in the arse_ , but it was complete.

"How long will it take for Forensics to test the atropine used here against the poison used for the previous two cases?" He asked Graves.

"Given all the new evidence they just got to process, probably two days? Less than a day if you breathe down their necks and put it as a priority."

"Do it."

Alex blinked. "You have an idea about who killed Carmichael and how."

"More than that. If that atropine matches and my theory holds, I know who poisoned Amelia Mansfield and Koizumi-kun as well."

That got the Inspector's attention as well. "You figured out how Carmichael and the Mansfield girl were poisoned? And why?"

"I'm still a little unclear on Amelia Mansfield's poisoning," Saguru admitted. "And I will need to ask Lemmer some more questions, as well as talk to the Surette and corroborate a few other details. But yes, I know who poisoned Akako Koizumi and William Carmichael, and how. Given recent events, I'd say it's rather obvious, actually."

"Hakuba..." Alex hissed, and shot him a look which clearly said: _You are being a twat_.

"I'm serious," Saguru protested, which earned him more glares, from both directions this time. "Get some sleep, and think over the details of the past two days. Start with Carmichael's murder—yes, it is a murder— and work backwards. Then it should be clear who committed the three poisonings in this case."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Several fair play murder mysteries (most famously the earlier Ellery Queen novels) offer a Challenge to the Reader at a certain point in the story, when all the necessary clues for a discerning reader to solve the murder(s) have been presented. I would say right now about 95% of all the necessary clues have been presented, but the remaining 5% would have made it too obvious, so this is the final chapter before the reveal.  
> (Hint: assume the atropine used this time came from the same batch as the previous two poisonings as well.)  
> Happy deducting, and feel free to comment with your theories!


	14. The Best Laid Plans

Saguru woke up well past ten o'clock the next morning to a steady drizzle of rain pattering against his window. Judging from the silence next door and the fact that the two of them didn't return from the crime scene until almost four am, Alex was most likely still catching up on some much-needed sleep.

He would have liked to sleep in as well, but there was too much to do. Saguru had a quick breakfast, then made a few calls to confirm certain details of his theory. He left a short note for Alex on the coffee table and went to the hospital.

Akako had been moved from the emergency ward to her own small room, and she was awake and sitting up when he entered.

"Hello, Koizumi-kun. You look a lot better now." The light green of her hospital scrubs brought out the unhealthy pallor of her skin, but otherwise she looked fully recovered from her ordeal.

"They should be releasing me in two or three days, thankfully. It's so boring here except for the visits." Her face hardened in displeasure. "It's going to take a few months for me to fully recover, though. Your blasted poisoner has much to answer for."

Saguru placed the flowers he'd brought to her bedside table, where it joined several bouquets already there. "Alex would be here as well, but we both had a very late night and he needed rest. There's been another incident."

"Yes, I know. William Carmichael's dead. Elaine-chan told me earlier." Saguru had not known it was possible for someone sitting in a hospital bed with an IV drip to look so smug, but Akako somehow managed the feat. "I _did_ warn you."

"If you really were prescient, isn't _this_ ," he gestured at the surrounding medical paraphernalia, "a rather large oversight?"

"I am usually better about things like that," Akako admitted with a frown. "But interfering with the direct intention of changing the future can make events change unpredictably. Or something could be blocking me, though it could just be my abilities are weaker here, so far from home."

Okay, so it wasn't just atropine induced hallucinations, but long held beliefs. Not wanting a repeat of their earlier argument right now, Saguru handed her his flowers instead.

"Let's just agree to disagree on this point." For now. He may have to dig up some of the more inspirational scientific/rationalist lectures he'd read before tackling this subject again.

"Very well then." Akako looked at his small bouquet with interest. "Yarrow for healing," she said, touching the feathery, fragrant leaves. "Purple hyacinth; apology. Amaryllis..." Her eyes narrowed. "Is that supposed to be for pride, or beauty?"

"Uhm, both?" he offered, feeling himself turn pink. The showy red amaryllis blossoms which caught his eyes at the flower shop had initially given him the idea of using hanakotoba, but the ambiguities in flower language worked both ways.

It also meant that it wasn't an adequate replacement for what he needed to say.

"I apologize for putting you in danger, Koizumi-kun. And also for what I said while alone in Perréal's library—no matter what my opinions were, I was incredibly rude."

He'd caught Akako off guard. She stared at Saguru in surprise, blinking several times before finally saying,

"Well, I told you that you have your head up your arse and to go screw yourself and the horse you rode in on, for starters, so, uhm, I wasn't really any better?"

"Did you?" Saguru said mildly.

" _Caput tuum in ano est. Te futueo et caballum tuum_. Swearing sounds so much more refined in Latin."

"My previous boarding school teacher seems to have been remiss. All we did was conjugate verbs and read Gallic Wars." That got him a smile.

"As for putting me in danger, that was my choice." Akako suddenly looked down, as if the pattern of her bedspread held the secrets of the cosmos. "...Thanks, no one's ever said sorry like that to me before, not without...Trust me when I say I can be _very_ good at persuading guys." Yeah, he'd seen that first-hand.

Akako's fingers brushed against the three round spots of white amidst the arrangement of red and purple.

"White chrysanthemum. Truth. You've solved the case?"

"I think so. It may take a few days to get confirmation and enough evidence."

"Hmm." There was a comfortable pause, then Akako's expression turned serious. "Thank you for what you did, Hakuba-kun. You and Alex and Ai-kun saved my life." At his visible surprise at Ai's name, she added, "I still had some awareness of my surroundings throughout most of my poisoning, you know. I wasn't _completely_ out of it."

"Haibara-kun doesn't want it be known that she was there."

"I figured as much. That's okay, I can keep a secret; it's the least I can do." Her dark brown gaze was intense. "I owe the three of you a life's debt, Hakuba-kun. Don't forget that."

* * *

By the time Alex got up, it was nearly one o'clock and the rain had stopped. He saw Hakuba's note after eating. _Gone to visit Koizumi, will give her your regards. Hope you have a solution worked out by the time I get back_ , it read.

The note, plus the memory of Hakuba's words from the night before made him sit down at the coffee table and take his own crack at crime solving. Alex spread out Hakuba's notes on all three poisonings and Dr. Souda's original file on the Mansfield murder on the floor, jotting down his own thoughts and observations as he went through the pile. Hakuba's notes were by far the most detailed—aside from the timelines, the other teen had even taken down conversations as exactly as he could. Two hours later, Hakuba himself returned to find Alex staring down at the veritable carpet of documents, nursing a glass of grapefruit juice and still trying to think.

"Koizumi-kun should be released in a few days," Hakuba greeted. "So? Did you get anywhere?"

Alex made an inspired attempt to convey his disgruntlement through glaring. When all the response that received was a slight smirk from Hakuba, he answered, "I think I've narrowed down the who and why, but I'm still trying to figure out the how."

"Very well then, let's hear what you have."

Alex gathered his thoughts. It felt strange to be the one explaining to the detective instead of the other way around. "First, if the atropine matches this time as well, which you seem to think it will—"

"It did," Hakuba cut in, the barest trace of smug satisfaction in his tone. "Inspector Graves just called me with the lab results."

Alex paused, then continued on. "Then that means all three poisonings were done by the same person or persons. Well, unless someone decided to start some sort of demented poison-and-pass-the-bottle-on mail chain, which I _think_ we can eliminate." Hakuba snorted at that.

"So then I looked at William Carmichael's poisoning. Since almost all our suspects only knew Carmichael through the Mansfields' party, I could only think of a few possibilities. One is that William Carmichael committed the other two poisonings, and then killed himself. The other is that either Joshua Carmichael or Andrea Beckley murdered him."

"Now, I couldn't think of a good reason why Carmichael couldn't have committed suicide at first—your saying that he didn't doesn't really count. But thinking over Akako's poisoning, either Simon Perréal was the culprit and faked being knocked out or it was genuine. If William Carmichael poisoned her, then he must have also been the one who knocked out Perréal. _But he couldn't have done that, because he was in the living room the entire time_."

"I was wondering if you would realize that," Hakuba said with faint approval.

"So someone else murdered Carmichael, knocked out Perréal and tried to kill Akako. Looking at the timeline of everyone's movements, both Beckley and Carmichael Jr. could have sneaked down to the basement and hit Perréal on the back of his head. Both were there when Akako was talking to William Carmichael in the living room. Either could have thought she was being too nosy and decided to bump her off."

"Joshua Carmichael would gain a fortune from his father's death, and apparently the two don't get along. He could have faked his reconciliation after his brother Eric's death, hiding his hatred and deciding to kill his father for the money. He wasn't at the Mansfields' cocktail party, however, so I don't see how he could have killed Amelia. Andrea Beckley could have decided to kill her soon-to-be father-in-law so she'd be marrying into a lot of money. It's a weaker motive than Carmichael's, but on the other hand she was actually at the party and her fiancé wasn't. So I would say it's either Andrea Beckley or her and Joshua Carmichael working together, but I don't know which. And I still have no bloody idea how either could have poisoned Amelia Mansfield and William Carmichael."

"Well, you're not wrong," Hakuba said softly. "Joshua Carmichael and his fiancée worked together. They're our poisoners."

* * *

Alex stared at him. It made sense, but... "How do you know?"

"Well, as you said, of the two of them only Andrea Beckley could have killed Amelia Mansfield, since Joshua wasn't at the party. And if my theory about how Carmichael was poisoned is correct, Joshua is the only person who could have done it. So the natural conclusion is that they're working together."

"There's another reason as well. You think that they tried to kill Koizumi-kun because they thought she knew too much, and I agree. But I don't think they did it because of the conversation in the living room—that was annoying, but not threatening enough to warrant such a drastic action so soon. I think they decided to kill her because Andrea Beckley was eavesdropping, and heard her tell me that William Carmichael would be the next to die."

Alex grabbed the sheet of paper with Hakuba's timeline, looking it over. The timing checked out. "Perréal's place is an eavesdropper's paradise. Beckley knows some Japanese, and she must have panicked," he said, thinking it through. "So she poisoned Akako's glass once she returned to the living room. She couldn't have knocked out Perréal if she was also eavesdropping—the basement is too far away, and she wasn't gone for long enough—so she must have contacted Joshua Carmichael somehow and told him to do it...his phone call!"

"Yes," Hakuba agreed. "I had the phone company trace that call. It lasted under a minute, and it came from Andrea Beckley's cell phone. Now, calling one's fiancé when he's in the same house as yourself is a bit odd, but combined with everything else..."

"It's incriminating," Alex completed. "Okay, but then how did Joshua Carmichael kill his father?"

"It's quite simple. He put atropine in the wine bottle, then replaced the second bottle in that row on the wine rack with his doctored bottle when he visited two weeks ago."

"Hakuba, you saw those bottles. It's impossible to put anything in without breaking the seal."

"Not if he added it _before_ the seals were placed on the freshly made bottle of wine...four years ago."

"You're kidding." Alex stared. "That is insane."

But it wasn't impossible, he realized. The wine had been made four years ago in Crécerelle, Carmichael's personal vineyard. And what had he heard William Carmichael tell Akako before?

 _I have my own vineyard in Bordeaux, and I make a batch with the crop every year. It's a pretty good bonding experience. Eric used to help every year, and afterwards Joshua—_ And then Joshua Carmichael had cut the conversation off. The natural implication was that Joshua continued his brother's tradition after Eric's death. Akako had returned the conversation to the vineyard shortly after; no wonder they'd freaked out and tried to kill her as well.

"That's probably why he used atropine too," Hakuba said, watching. "Remember what Perréal told us? Aside from how easily it can be obtained, atropine is a very stable poison. Put it in a bottle of wine, and it won't break down for years."

"Still...waiting four years to kill your own father..." Alex had seen the depths some people would sink to, and he still had a hard time picturing this. "The sheer amount of hatred you would need for that..."

"I'm not sure how much of it was hate and how much was greed, but at a guess I'd say the breaking point was his brother Eric's death six years ago," Hakuba mused. "I spoke to Lemmer, the butler. It's true that the two of they argued a great deal; in fact, I got the impression that Eric Carmichael was the peacekeeper and the only member of the family both liked. To all appearances the two made up after his death, but..."

"Instead, you think his brother's death was the last straw for Joshua," Alex said slowly. "Okay, but then who swapped the two bottles in Carmichael's study?"

"Oh that?" Hakuba blinked. "William Carmichael himself, obviously."

Well, the victim seemed to have died alone in his study, so it was the simplest solution. "Carmichael realized, or suspected that his son poisoned him," Alex said, connecting the dots. "He may have even guessed how. So he tried to cover it up by swapping the bottles and wiping off the prints."

"That was what actually first tipped me off," Hakuba explained. "Atropine does not work all that quickly. Koizumi-kun stayed conscious for at least fifteen minutes after we realized she was poisoned. William Carmichael has at least thirty pounds on her, plus he'd just finished a full dinner. I had warned him of danger, he knew the symptoms and should have been alert. Once he realized his condition all he would have needed to do was call out to the police guards _right outside his door_. But he didn't. And his son was the only person he would have gone to those lengths to protect."

"I guess he did take the reconciliation seriously, then," Alex said quietly. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to know who your own murderer is, and not only accept it but willingly help them get away with it. Maybe it was different between father and son, within family. "What about Amelia's murder, then?" He asked, not wanting to think along those lines any further.

"That...I am still having some trouble with," Hakuba admitted with reluctance. "The most plausible reason I can think of for Carmichael and Beckley to kill Amelia is as misdirection, or to establish an alibi for Joshua Carmichael. It would also explain why they used the same poison all three times; I can't imagine why they would keep that batch of atropine for more than four years other than to purposely link the poisonings. But they couldn't have used an identical trick, not without poisoning everyone who drank from the same bottle as Amelia, so I'm still stuck on how they did it."

"Killing an innocent girl neither of them knew just to help cover up a later murder? A patricide in progress, no less..." Alex mused. They would both have to be incredibly ruthless to even consider such a thing.

Then it hit him. "Did it have to be Amelia?"

"What?"

"You think the goal was to establish an alibi for Joshua Carmichael by killing someone unrelated in a way which couldn't be plausibly traced back to them. Then, wouldn't _any_ of the other guests have worked just as well?"

From the look on Hakuba's face, he'd caught on instantly. "So they must have done it the way Dr. Souda first theorized. When Andrea Beckley walked up to pour her drink, she dropped the poison into one of the other empty glasses."

"Right. Dr. Souda said a small amount left at the bottom of a glass would be nearly undetectable. It didn't matter to her who ended up dead—as long as it wasn't William Carmichael. So she set aside a clean glass of wine for him, then poisoned one of the remaining glasses at random," Alex completed. Then he frowned as a thought occurred to him. "You know, assuming we're right, they went to a lot of trouble to create a misdirection you ended up seeing through anyways."

Hakuba shook his head. "That's with the advantage of hindsight. Keep in mind, Koizumi-kun's poisoning was done on the spur of the moment. If everything had gone as planned, all we would have to go on are two impossible crimes linked together by the same poison and practically nothing else. It's likely they were hoping Carmichael Sr. would be blamed for the first murder, and his death ruled a suicide. But then Koizumi-kun messed everything up for them. You know what they say about the best laid plans."

"You don't look very happy," Alex noted. "Doesn't this explain everything? The mystery is solved."

Hakuba's response was glum. "The theory does fit all the facts, but now we have another problem." He looked at Alex.

"Proof. Where are we going to find enough proof?"

* * *

As the stream of evidence processed by forensics slowed to a trickle over the next few days, Alex began to understand what Hakuba was worried about. After both French Customs and Henry Lemmer confirmed that Joshua Carmichael had been in the Bordeaux area and helped out with the wine making at Crécerelle four years ago, Hakuba told Inspector Graves about his solution. The Inspector's reaction was not sanguine.

"It explains all the peculiarities in this case and doesn't contradict any of the evidence," Graves had said. "But all we have right now is one suspicious phone call from Beckley to Carmichael, plus a host of circumstantial evidence. The fine details do all add up, but put this in court with a decent defense lawyer for Carmichael and it could swing either way. I can get a search warrant, but if they've disposed of the poison we'll be back to square one, and we'll have shown our hand."

"What we need," Hakuba said, echoing Graves final words on the matter as he paced back and forth in their room, "is the proverbial smoking gun."

"Or in this case, the bottle of poison." Alex considered the matter from a comfy armchair. "You know, I could sneak into their hotel room and poke around."

"We need something admissible in court, Alex."

"I can look for something admissible." Hakuba shot him a look. "What? If you're right those two are guilty of two murders and one attempted murder." Alex wasn't about to let a little thing like procedure get in the way of justice.

A knock came at their door, and Alex saw Hakuba's expression brighten as he opened it. Akako walked in, a few notebooks tucked under one arm. "They've _finally_ let me out. Hello, Alex. Hakuba-kun, thanks for the math help, and your notes."

Alex grinned. "He's been continuing your study sessions?"

"The hospital's been so boring even calculus was preferable. Not an insult on your teaching skills, Hakuba-kun." She handed the notebooks to Hakuba, then looked curiously between them. "I couldn't help hearing from outside. I know you solved the case, so what's the matter?"

"Lack of evidence," Alex answered. Hakuba sighed something about confidentiality, which both Alex and Akako pretended not to hear.

"So you need to catch the killers, what's the word, 'red-handed'?" Akako mused. "I've been considered a threat already, I could play bait—"

" _No_ ," Hakuba interrupted. "Koizumi-kun, you _just_ got out of the hospital."

"Not a bad idea, though," Alex said. "But Hakuba's right, it's too dangerous for you, Akako. Maybe if I contacted those two and tell them I have a little theory, pretend I want money for my silence..."

"I'm not sure they'd believe you, considering your association with me, plus the fact you've locked them up in Perréal's library before," Hakuba reminded him. "A sting could work, but we would need to use the right person. Ideally someone not connected with the police investigation, but who has a reasonable chance of stumbling on or figuring out Carmichael or Beckley's guilt..."

* * *

Simon Perréal blinked. " _Pardon_ , just so I am clear: you want me to pretend I saw my attacker and try to blackmail these people, in the hopes that one of them will try to silence me?"

"The police will be hidden and watching their every move," Inspector Graves told him smoothly. "We will arrest them at the first sign of trouble."

"They still want the police to think that William Carmichael was the poisoner and committed suicide, so they'll probably try to make it look like an accident," Hakuba added. Perréal did not look very reassured.

"It would be an excellent opportunity to display my craft," Perréal said hesitantly, his French accent slightly more pronounced than usual. " _Mais Mon Dieu_ , isn't this all rather, ah, dangerous?"

They were losing him. Alex thought quickly, then sighed in false impatience. "We're wasting our time, Hakuba. He's just like Ms. Renfrew said."

Perréal perked up like a golden retriever sighting a ball. "Catherine said something about me?"

"Oh, just that she thought you were all surfaces and would never put anything serious on the line. Let me do it instead, Hakuba."

Now Perréal's expression resembled a retriever whose nose had been smacked. "I was simply raising a valid concern," he interjected. "Of course I'd be willing to do my duty to justice."

"So you are willing to help us?" Inspector Graves asked.

"Yes," Perréal affirmed. Hakuba gave Alex a confused frown at the man's quick turnaround; Alex shrugged discretely in response. He couldn't understand Perréal's ridiculously one-sided thing for Ms. Renfrew at all, but he wasn't about to complain.

"But if I were to do it, I want everyone else there as well." The actor's green eyes were far off, as if picturing the scene. "All the suspects gathered, like the final reveal in a mystery play—like Poirot. _Un grand dénouement_."

* * *

"I don't feel good about this," Alex said, watching PC Nash and a forensic technician hide a camera and microphone behind the glossy leaves of a rubber plant in Simon Perréal's living room. Nothing they said could dissuade Perréal without putting him off altogether, so in the end Inspector Graves was forced to cave to the actor's dramatic sensibilities.

"This house has more than enough police; Graves is using every extra constable from the other districts as well," Hakuba reminded him. "Perréal will be perfectly safe."

"I know, I know." They had planned for Perréal to hold his blackmailing attempt in the library. Two groups of three constables each, with full video feeds, led by Inspector Graves and Hakuba would be hidden in the two nearby bedrooms, with other officers scattered around the mansion just in case. "I even agree with Perréal that Carmichael and Beckley would be less suspicious if they weren't the only ones invited here. But I still don't like it." More civilians being around for the confrontation meant more potential casualties, if things went sideways. At least they'd got Pf. Agasa and Ai to promise to stay in their rooms with the doors locked until the arrest was completed.

"I've done stings like this before, with a much larger group of people and only two officers as backup. Everything will be fine."

Then the doorbell rang, and Hakuba went to get it. His assurance vanished the instant he saw their unexpected visitor. "What the hell are you doing here, Ak—Koizumi-kun?!"

Akako stood at the door step, pale but determined. "The Mansfields should be represented at the arrest." She stared straight at Hakuba. "I've left a sealed message behind with Elaine-chan. You can choose between just me or having all of them come down here."

Well, this was starting to turn into a mess. Alex glanced between them. Akako stood there in a black skirt and a wine-red top with a plunging neckline, arms crossed and still staring fiercely. Hakuba had his eyes closed and was pinching the bridge of his nose.

"How did you even know to come here, anyways?" Alex questioned. "This wasn't exactly advertised."

"Hmmm, let's just call it _hitsuzen_."

Hakuba looked two seconds away from hitting his head against the nearest wall. "Koizumi-kun, this is a police operation. I could have you arrested for interference."

That got him nothing but a vulpine smile and a purred, "Did you want to see me in handcuffs that badly, Hakuba-kun?" Akako evidently took the lack of a comeback as an admission of defeat; she walked inside with a purposeful stride.

"What's _hitsuzen_?" Alex asked in the silence after she turned a corner and was lost to sight.

"The closest English equivalent is fate, or inevitability." Now Hakuba looked _one_ second away from hitting his head against the wall. "I'd better tell Inspector Graves. She might listen to him more than me."

Alex somehow doubted it.

* * *

When the doorbell rang again three hours later, the two boys were far more prepared. Akako had been strongly persuaded to keep Ai company in her room and safely away until the sting was completed. Hakuba, Inspector Graves and all accompanying officers were hidden and silent, while Alex was in a more open position in the living room playing the innocent teenager again. He knew Hakuba was probably toggling the video feed, which should display a bird's eye view of Catherine Renfrew, Joshua Carmichael and Andrea Beckley standing outside the main door, the same picture as he was seeing from the living room windows but from a different angle. Simon Perréal was on the other side of the entrance, carefully touching up his blond hair before opening the door with a wide smile that showed off commercial-worthy teeth.

"Welcome again!" he greeted the three with a flourish. Alex mentally sighed. Perréal was definitely Acting with a capital A, but hopefully it wasn't far off enough from his normally dramatic behaviour to raise alarm.

"What are you doing here?" Ms. Renfrew asked bluntly once she saw Alex slouching back on the couch.

Alex shrugged and made himself look bored. "I dunno. Mr. Perréal wanted Hakuba, but he's going over forensic stuff with the Inspector." He looked at Joshua Carmichael. "Hey, uhm, I'm very sorry for your loss."

"Thank you. It has been a trying few days." Carmichael looked suitably solemn in his dark brown clothes. "Does the Inspector have any leads?"

"Last I heard they're still processing evidence, but I don't think so?" Alex lied. Carmichael actually looked disappointed, and Alex mentally applauded the man's acting abilities.

"Speaking of your late and esteemed father, there's something I want to show you." Perréal spoke right on cue, thankfully sounding much more natural than before. "A memento I found. Ms. Beckley can come too. _Beldame_ , why don't you stay here with Alex?"

Here it came. Perréal had purposely dropped a few cryptic remarks when he initially telephoned Carmichael and Beckley to come here, so the two should be on edge and trying to find out if the actor really knew too much. Carmichael looked relaxed, but when Andrea Beckley linked her arm through his her fingers were too tense.

"Lead the way," she assented, smile a tad too tight, and the pair followed Perréal out of the living room.

As soon as they were out of earshot Catherine Renfrew turned to Alex. "What's going on?"

Alex somehow knew she would be able to tell if he lied outright. "What makes you think there's something going on?" he hedged, and got an unimpressed stare in response. "Just wait and see," he finally said.

Alex imagined the conversation that must be going on in the library right now. Simon Perréal should have just finished telling the murderers that he knew of their crimes...now he should be easing into the blackmail as the two first tried to deny everything, then tried to bargain. The actor would drive a hard price, then purposely walk a little away and turn his back on the two. He could picture Carmichael and Beckley glancing at each other, mutually deciding to add another victim to their count rather than risk being exposed. Would they strike now, or agree and plan a more elaborate death for Perréal later?

" _Freeze_!" Graves' booming voice, a rush of footsteps, the crash of the much-tried library door. A few beats later, a shrill police whistle sounded—the signal for all clear. Alex grinned and got up.

"You know, you should really give Mr. Perréal a break. He just helped us catch a pair of murderers," he told Ms. Renfrew.

* * *

Inspector Graves and Hakuba already had the situation under control when Alex entered the library, Ms. Renfrew following close behind him. Their culprits were apprehended; Joshua Carmichael was being held back by PC Turner's muscular grip, while Andrea Beckley was restrained by a male constable with spiky black hair Alex didn't recognize. Neither struggled, probably recognizing that they had lost. Perréal was beaming proudly near the windows. Alex saw Akako slip into the room and glare at the pair, Ai and Pf. Agasa entering after her. The library was beginning to feel quite crowded.

"So, now that it's over...how _did_ they manage to poison Carmichael and the Mansfield girl? I must admit I'm very curious," Perréal asked. Ms. Renfrew stayed silent, but she turned her gaze to Hakuba. Alex saw the other teen notice his full audience and unconsciously straighten his posture to an oratory pose, before launching into a monologue about the solution.

Hakuba had a mostly rapt audience, but Alex had already heard what he was saying before, so he only kept one ear on Hakuba's speech and observed everyone else's reaction instead. Simon Perréal and Pf. Agasa were listening with intent interest. Inspector Graves nodded along with a keen eye, while PC Nash and the other members of the police who had puzzled over the cases and hadn't heard the full explanation yet also listened closely. He caught a flash of dark red go out the door in his peripheral vision—had Akako seen enough already? Carmichael's face was stony as the story of his crimes poured out in Hakuba's crisp, polite tone, while his fiancée's expression alternated between rage and despair. And Ai...

Ai's blue-grey eyes were wide with terror, her gaze flickering from Simon Perréal by the windows, to Inspector Graves on the other side of the room, to Catherine Renfrew standing beside her. She halted there for a few seconds before moving on to scan each of the police constables, as if searching for something she was scared to find. Her face was stark white.

Alex stopped short. He hadn't seen Ai that terrified since...since they got that mysterious text in London, right before a sniper shot their kidnappers. At that realization, Alex could feel his own senses heighten, trying to pick out anything that could be a cause for alarm.

Suddenly he realized that he and Ai weren't the only ones doing so; Catherine Renfrew had also stopped listening to Hakuba and was surreptitiously scanning her surroundings. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes glided from the library windows to the lone door, up to the ceiling, then from occupant to occupant. They paused on Ai, who was standing beside her, then went to Alex, who froze under her almost-yellow gaze.

"Alex?" Hakuba had noticed their distraction.

 _BANG_! The sound of an explosion rent the air. It came from above them, but the floor still shook violently under their feet. Alex grabbed one of the bookshelves to keep himself upright.

" _Mon laboratoire_!" he heard Perréal yell, then a second blast came, and everything turned to chaos.

Sounds of a scuffle and Constable Turner's warning cry came from behind him. A loud crash, then another, deafening _BANG_ , right inside the library. Alex ducked down instinctively, seeing Hakuba and the others follow suit on the other side of the room. A gunshot. Then another.

 _What. The. Bloody. Hell_ , Alex swore as he threw himself to the ground, right before a third shot came and someone screamed. A rush of motion—Carmichael and Beckley tearing out of the library, a gun in Beckley's hand. After their swift exit there was a dazed silence, like the calm after a hurricane. As Inspector Graves called for surrounding back-up, Alex pulled himself up and tried to assess the damage.

"Well, these little social gatherings have been singularly irksome of late," he heard Catherine Renfrew mutter. "Stop hiding Simon, our Bonnie and Clyde are gone."

He glanced back. Ms. Renfrew must have toppled the chrome table; she and Ai were behind the impromptu shield. That had been the crash he heard earlier. Simon Perréal cautiously poked his head out from the long sofa he and Pf. Agasa had ducked behind.

"We need to check on my lab," the man said frantically. "If there's a fire, the chemicals—"

"I'll have men on that after I make sure no one else is hurt," Inspector Graves growled. "Turner, Walden, are you two okay?"

The officers who had restrained their culprits short minutes before were both flat on the ground. "Vest stopped the bullet, Sir," Turner said with a wince.

"Just some bruised ribs," Walden agreed. "But Sir, I think they have my gun."

Turner reached for her holster, found it empty and swore. "My Glock's gone. Carmichael must have taken it after Beckley shot me."

Graves made a quick call. "The team covering the cars hasn't encountered anyone, but the two have been spotted running from the north corner of the house," he reported.

"Where would they run to?" Hakuba demanded.

"There's a lake about four miles away on the northeast trail near that end," Perréal guessed. "If they steal a boat from there..."

Alex didn't stay to hear more. He turned and ran out of the house, ignoring the shouts from behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Whew. I was seriously tempted to split this chapter in two, partly due to the length (it's definitely long enough for two chapters), and partly because I got a massive case of writer's block trying to complete the second half. Explaining the solution to the mystery was easy enough since I had that planned from the beginning, but then I couldn't figure out how to maneuver the characters to where I wanted them to be. Still not all that satisfied with the result, but it's the best I could do without spending another fortnight on it.
> 
> I also originally planned for the solution to be revealed in a classic Detective Conan styled summation gathering, but then I wanted to show Alex making some contributions and try some sleuthing.
> 
> As always, comments, constructive criticism and reviews are all welcome.


	15. Viper's Den

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: violence, snakes and an extremely pissed off Akako

Alex had reached the beginnings of the trail when shouts from behind made him slow down. Hakuba. Once the other teen drew closer, Alex could see a thin, straight line running from the detective's left elbow to half-way up his forearm. It dripped red.

Alex stopped. "Hakuba, your arm..."

"It's just a scratch, it looks worse than it is," Hakuba dismissed. His next words came out all in a rush. "Where's Koizumi-kun? I didn't see her scatter when Carmichael and Beckley escaped."

Alex threw his mind over the events of the past quarter hour. "I saw her leave a bit after your explanation started. She's not inside?"

Hakuba shook his head. "None of the officers have seen her. And she's not answering her phone." He froze as a thought struck him. "Koizumi-kun's really angry about these poisonings. If she saw them escaping...she wouldn't have..."

This time when Alex started running again, Hakuba followed beside him.

* * *

Saguru recognized the trail they were taking as one that lead northeast, but this section ran straight for a while, and their culprits didn't get that much of a head start.

"Are you certain they're heading towards the lake? We should have seen some signs of them by now," Alex asked, probably thinking along the same lines.

Saguru slowed from his run to a very fast walk. "They must have guessed that the police have the cars covered. The water's their best bet, and he's been in this general area before...what if there's a shortcut?" He stopped altogether, taking the time to both think and catch his breath. Alex stopped as well, but he paced restlessly, a coil of energy looking for an outlet. The other boy was barely even winded, Saguru noticed.

"Is there high ground anywhere close by?" Alex asked.

Saguru pulled up a mental map of the area, then shook his head. Alex glanced around, and spotted a tall pine nearby. Its branches were evenly spread out, and it was easy for Alex to climb up steadily while Saguru kept an eye out below.

"They're about ten minutes away straight that way," Alex announced once he was back on the ground. "Akako's hair is pretty easy to pick out, and there's someone with her—almost definitely Carmichael. No idea where Andrea Beckley is though."

Saguru tried to keep himself calm. Carmichael would gain a greater advantage taking a hostage than making a fresh corpse, for now at least, he tried to convince himself. _Your blasted poisoner has much to answer for_. Why the blazes couldn't Akako just stay in the house and _not_ go confronting armed killers on her own?

He took out his cell phone and dialed the main house. One of the constables picked up, and Saguru quickly reported the situation and their location, requesting backup.

"Graves and the others are dealing with the lab fire caused by the explosions, but he's sending some officers our way," he said after hanging up.

"He won't be able to spare more than one or two," Alex said quietly. "And it'll take them ten minutes just to get to where we are now."

"I know." The longer they waited, the greater the chance that Carmichael would decide to harm Akako, if he hadn't already.

"I'm going to circle around ahead of him," Alex said. He didn't sound like he could be talked into waiting for the police to catch up.

Saguru didn't want to wait either. "You do that. I'll catch up from behind. Hopefully he's left Akako unharmed, but if I meet him I'll try to talk him down, stall him."

"We should switch then. Carmichael's armed, and he'll be pretty angry with you."

Saguru shook his head. "You're much faster and stealthier than I am." He reached deep into an inner pocket, and Alex stared at the Smith & Wesson revolver he drew out. Saguru made sure the muzzle was pointed at the ground, and held it out handle-first towards him. "And I'm willing to bet you're a better marksman as well. And before you ask: yes, I actually do have a license for this."

"You may, but I don't." Alex shook his head. "I can improvise if need be. Keep your gun. If you're going to walk right up to Carmichael, you'll need it much more than I do."

He stepped off the trail path and began walking away. Saguru didn't know what to say— _stay safe_ was trite and ridiculous under the circumstances, but he had to say something. "Don't get shot," he finally called out.

Alex snorted. "Take your own advice," he retorted without breaking stride or turning around. He steadily picked up speed and was soon lost to sight among the trees.

While the situation was still a huge mess, to put it mildy, the other teen's quiet confidence actually made him feel slightly calmer. It was clear that crises like these were Alex's area of expertise, just as deductions and crime-solving were his.

Saguru holstered his gun and struck out northeast, where Akako—and Joshua Carmichael—surely awaited.

* * *

Joshua Carmichael rushed towards the lake. He had a good head start on his pursuers and he was taking the shortcut, if he and Andrea could only find a speedboat...

He was deep in the forest, surrounded by green leaves. The tall aspens waved their branches above him, hurrying him on. The barely visible path wound around a curve, and he saw a lone figure in black and red. Carmichael slowed down, reached into the pocket in his coat where he had stashed his stolen gun, and warily approached. It was that red-headed girl from Japan, the one who was a friend of the detective, Akako Ko-something? She was sitting on a small boulder but did not seem to care about the dirt her clothes would undoubtedly pick up. The girl had a small paper bag with her, and as he watched she reached into the brown bag with one hand and scattered its contents on the ground. Several birds were eyeing the area with cautious interest, but as he approached they took to the air with warning cries. The girl looked up and saw him.

"Ah, Carmichael-san. I take it Hakuba-kun has finished his talk?" she said.

Carmichael raised the gun and aimed it at her. He was standing less than three yards away. The girl's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the Glock 17, but otherwise she seemed unfazed.

"What are you planning to do with that? I don't see a ... what is the word... silencer, yes. The police have guessed you are heading for the lake to escape, and Hakuba-kun is not far behind. If you shoot they will know exactly where to come."

"He can come. I should have finished him off at the house. Now get out of my way or I blow your head off."

Her eyes widened. "You hurt Hakuba-kun?"

"Barely grazed the bastard. I'll have better aim next time." He thought of the approaching detective and police squad. Tenacious opponents, but with the right leverage on his side... "Actually, I've got a better idea. You're going to come with me."

The girl stood up. She seemed perfectly calm again. "There is one thing I want to know. Why did you kill Amelia? She was no threat to you."

"She was just misdirection. Bad luck, on her part."

"You didn't even know her! And she was so young."

"Enough talking! Leave your bag and walk towards me face forward with your hands up. She had bad luck and so do you. You picked the wrong time to come feed the birds."

The girl smiled. It was not a nice smile.

"I am not the one with bad luck today, Mr. Poisoner. And it is not the _birds_ that I came here to feed."

* * *

Alex kept himself moving at a steady pace, mentally plotting a path through the woods which should let him slightly overtake Carmichael before circling back and hopefully surprising him. This far off the trail path the ground was an uneven jumble of fallen branches, sprawling plants and partially-rotten trunks of fallen trees, forcing his run to turn more into a series of brisk walks and hops. He guessed the forest around here must be a conservation area, and though his summery green surroundings were much more pleasant than those at Brecon Beacons he couldn't exactly stop and enjoy it.

He jumped over a gurgling brook, startling a rabbit, then turned back to pocket a few water-smoothed pebbles. Now that Alex thought about it he probably should have just accepted Hakuba's revolver, but that would have left the other boy defenseless. He would have to try to tear a strip off his shirt and make a slingshot, or find a decent-sized branch to use as a bat. It was the best plan of attack he could come up with at the moment, but he had a nagging feeling he was missing something.

Alex entered a copse of some tall deciduous trees—aspens? Elms? He didn't know. The trees grew steadily more dense until their crown of leaves joined together to block out the sunlight, and he was practically weaving between the thick trunks. Alex paused. Would taking a detour be faster or would he just become hopelessly lost?

A flash of blonde in his side view was all the warning Alex got before a shot rang out. It scored a tree a few feet behind him, and he ducked behind the nearest trunk, swearing under his breath.

He and Hakuba had been so focused on Carmichael they'd forgotten that Andrea Beckley was _also_ on the loose with a stolen gun.

Her second shot clipped a branch right beside his head. And apparently, she had somewhat decent aim.

 _Next time someone offers me a gun,_ Alex resolved, _I'm going to bloody take it_.

* * *

Alex waited until he heard Beckley stepping on a branch loud enough to startle some birds before running out from his tree, head low, zigzagging as he went, mentally blessing the dense trunks which had annoyed him just moments before. They slowed her down, and provided precious cover for Alex.

He risked a glance backwards to look at the gun that was now in Beckley's possession. A Heckler & Koch USP semi-automatic. That specific make (.45 ACP) held up to ten rounds, he recalled. Minus the three shots fired back in the library and the two she just used up, she had at most five shots left.

But she wasn't shooting any more. Alex took another look back. Beckley was running towards him with the gun pointed down, a determined expression on her face. She must have realized that he was too far away and the trees too thick for a good shot. Instead the woman was focusing on decreasing the distance between them.

Alex couldn't run this way forever. At this rate he would lead her right to Carmichael, or the trees would start thinning out and he would lose his cover.

Five shots. He just needed her to use up five more shots—and not get hit.

"It'd be much better for you to give up now. The police know where you're headed," he yelled. "That goes for your precious fiancé too."

Beckley's reply was unprintable. "You bloody stupid kids just _had_ to stick your noses in other people's business," she continued as she drew steadily closer.

"You know, when you start sounding like a Scooby-Doo villain, you should seriously reconsider your life choices. You killed a completely innocent girl you didn't even know, just so your fiancé can kill his father and inherit a pile of cash?"

"It wasn't just for that. Josh would have just poisoned his father straight off." She was about sixty yards away; just within the maximum range of her gun. Did she know that? "I couldn't let him get caught—we needed a diversion. It's a bit sad it turned out to be the Mansfield girl, but it's also proof of my devotion, see? Throwing my lot in with him, irrevocably and forever." She aimed and fired. Alex spun behind the nearest tree, and felt the impact as bullet drilled into wood.

"What, flowers were too cliché, so you decided to commit murder together instead?" Alex supposed it was good to know that insanity was not restricted to the supremely wealthy. He dodged another shot, moving to a tree with many sturdy-looking branches, and began to climb as quickly as he could. Three left.

"Together, for better or worse, for richer or poorer. Preferably richer." Beckley moved closer, saw him a few feet above her head, and laughed. "The bears I've hunted before also climbed. They were much more impressive though."

She stepped under his tree, confident now, and fired up at him twice. Alex jumped as the branch he was standing on splintered and broke, clinging onto to the rough bark for dear life. One shot left. He pulled himself to a higher branch and looked down. Beckley had been forced to dodge the falling branch. Right as she aimed at him again Alex took his chance.

He threw all the pebbles he'd gathered straight at her head. She instinctively ducked, making her shot go wide, and Alex leapt.

He landed right on top of Andrea Beckley, knocking her hard to the ground with gravity-assisted force. Alex must have cracked at least one of her ribs, but she still struggled with surprising strength. He moved back as her left hand with its long nails tried to claw his face off, then there came a blast of pain as she pistol-whipped him with her right. As his head rang, Alex belatedly realized: he didn't see or hear the magazine automatically eject after being emptied. Either he miscounted somehow, or Carmichael had fired one of the shots in the library before.

Alex dazedly watched as she levelled the gun at his head with a look of mixed pain and triumph, finger moving on the trigger. She was too close to miss. Then her eyes suddenly widened in alarm, and her arms flailed. Alex didn't hesitate—he kneed her in the stomach, and grabbed the gun still in her right hand. Beckley stubbornly refused to let go, so he pumped the trigger instead. The magazine fell out as the last bullet skimmed the ground and landed in the woods. Only when he finally knocked her out with a well-aimed nerve pinch did he look back to see what had distracted her.

Right beside him was a long snake, its whip-like tail wrapped around Beckley's foot. It was almost four feet long, with dark brown markings zigzagging down a light tan body. Alex had no idea whether it was venomous or not. He could have sworn it was looking at them, its forked tongue flickering in and out of a flat, oval head with rust-red eyes. He tried not to move. A few seconds later, it slithered away and was soon lost to sight in the undergrowth.

Alex let out a deep breath. He stood up, pried the gun out of Beckley's hand, and looked around, trying to get his bearings again. He had completely lost track of the time since the fight started—he could only hope that Akako and Hakuba were still okay.

His relief was short-lived. Alex's instincts told him he was still being watched, but this time, he was more annoyed than alarmed.

"Come out, I know you're there," he called out. "I have a gun." It was empty, but hopefully whoever it was didn't know that.

All was silent. Alex almost thought he was being paranoid again. Then a lithe figure in khakis and a polo shirt appeared. Blond, bone pale, with a ruler-straight scar on his neck. For a supposedly dead man, the Russian didn't step so much as melt out of the shadows.

"Hello, Alex," said Yassen Gregorovitch.

* * *

Saguru carefully approached the two obscured figures in front of him as quickly and unobtrusively as he could. Through the break in the trees, he could see that one of them was Akako, and to his relief she appeared unharmed. Facing her stood Carmichael, though the man's clothes strangely seemed to be bulkier than they were before for some reason. Saguru was currently behind him and to his side, and he tried to step forward as quietly as possible, keeping out of Carmichael's peripheral vision.

He reached for his revolver, and winced as he stepped on a branch. Saguru stilled and tried to blend in with his surroundings as much as he could, but neither Akako nor Carmichael moved...which was rather odd. The branch breaking had not been quiet, and he imagined they should both be very on edge. He was about ten yards away when the surrounding greenery tapered off and he could see the two figures clearly for the first time. Saguru came to a sudden and complete stop, his jaw dropping in horror as his brain tried to process exactly what he was seeing.

What he had mistaken for Carmichael's bulkiness from a distance were in fact snakes. Lots and lots of snakes.

 _Vipera berus_ , his stunned mind helpfully supplied. The common viper, native to this part of Britain. They covered Carmichael's entire form, a writhing, sinuous mass of long scaled bodies and flickering tongues, entwining him from head to foot in a living tangle of mottled brown. What looked like the entire viper population of the forest was moving on the body of one man. From what Saguru could see of Carmichael's face under one particularly large specimen wrapped tightly around his head, the man's eyes were squeezed shut in abject terror. The stolen Glock 17 had dropped from Carmichael's right hand, and given how his arms were strapped to his side by a frenzy of moving vipers he severely doubted the man would able to pick it up again.

After a long minute Saguru tore his eyes away from Carmichael and remembered to check on Akako. The girl didn't seem to be scared or even surprised; instead, she was watching Carmichael. Saguru found her expression strange; it was the look of someone who was watching a displeasing television program and was debating when to shut it off.

"Koizumi-kun?" he spoke carefully in Japanese. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be better, once the vermin here has been disposed of." She turned to face him, and her eyes fixed on the bloody rip on his forearm. Saguru saw that her lips were pressed tight, and her brown eyes were cold with hatred and rage. "He shot you? That makes five."

"He missed. I got a graze, that's all." She was starting to unnerve him more than the mass of vipers covering Carmichael. "Let's head back, Koizumi-kun. The police will be here soon; they can handle Carmichael." Though he had no idea how they were going to extract him from his slithery companions.

Akako gestured at the snakes. "I would preferred to have taken care of this entirely by myself, but I'm still too weak from his thrice-blasted poison. Luckily, they were in the area. I told you that I like snakes, Hakuba-kun. Well, the feeling happens to be mutual."

* * *

For the second time in less than five minutes, Saguru felt his mind completely shut down. _This is not possible_ , he told himself. What Akako had thought were visions was simply a side effect of atropine poisoning and an overactive subconscious making connections. What was left was the mystery of the vipers, but he could solve that. He could see a small paper bag on the ground, some dead insects scattered around it. Maybe Akako had found some way of gathering the snakes using the bugs as feed, and then somehow tricked Carmichael into stepping into a viper's den?

"First for Amelia," he heard Akako say, and then there was the sound of fangs snapping into soft flesh and a strangled scream.

This could not be happening. _This was impossible_ —

"Second, for poisoning me." Another bite. This one was on the shoulder; he could see spots of blood start to bloom through Carmichael's clothes. The man was struggling now, desperately trying to break free, but there was no use. All the movement would only make the poison spread faster.

 _Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._ And the truth was that Akako, like the Kaitou KID, was capable of twisting the laws of reality to her own ends.

And the truth was that, even with two bites, the venom of the common viper was unlikely to be lethal, especially for an adult male of Carmichael's size. Incredibly painful, yes, but fully recoverable given prompt treatment.

_I still have a chance of saving Carmichael, and I still have a chance of saving Akako from herself._

"Third, for your father, who loved you and who you killed—" Before she could finish, Saguru ran towards Carmichael and kicked the gun on the ground out of both his and Akako's reach. A viper idly twined down from Carmichael's hand and Saguru froze, but the snake ignored him as if he wasn't there.

He got up, faced Akako, and caught his breath. An unfiltered ray of sunlight lighted her red hair ablaze, and her face was a study in merciless fury.

Every sensible instinct screamed at him to run. But Saguru couldn't just walk away and let her kill Carmichael, however much the man may deserve it. Moral principles aside, he couldn't let Akako take that irreversible step.

Saguru assessed his options. There was no sign of Alex, ditto for the expected police backup, and Andrea Beckley was still loose somewhere in the woods. He was on his own. He had his revolver; Akako had control over enough vipers to stock a zoo and a chain of circuses. _I should have given my gun to Alex_ , he thought, slightly lightheaded at this entire bizarre situation. _It's of absolutely no use to me at all_.

"Akako." The lack of an honorific attached to her first name got him her full attention. "You don't have to do this," he said softly.

"Blood for blood, life for life, poison for poison," she said, still looking like some sort of pagan goddess, wrathful and implacable. "I know I don't have to do this, Hakuba-kun. But I _want_ to."

Saguru had no idea what to do now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: You guys didn't really think Akako was just going to stand by and let Alex and Hakuba have all the fun, did you? (How many guessed that the title referred to a literal viper's den?)
> 
> And with this chapter, I've used up all of my buffer chapters. Chp 16 and the epilogue are around 60% written, so hopefully they won't be too delayed.
> 
> As always, comments, constructive criticism and reviews are all welcome.


	16. Cleared Debts and Clean Slates

Saguru took a deep breath. He had no idea what to do, but as long as Akako was talking to him she wasn't focused on killing Carmichael. Frantically he tried to think of a way to get her to stand down—and to call off the blasted snakes. Maybe a show of authority would make her realize the consequences of her actions?

"Akako, I can't let you kill him in cold blood," he said as firmly as he could, stepping between her and Carmichael and making sure to maintain eye contact. "That's murder, and that goes against everything I believe in." With regret, he drew out his revolver, not pointing it at Akako yet but making sure she could see it.

That was a mistake. Akako looked shocked, then _hurt_. Saguru winced, but her expression was soon dominated by another emotion: anger. It had been held back like banked embers, but now the fury on her face lit anew, and it was directed at him.

"You're going to shoot me, Saguru-kun?" she asked in a menacing tone, dropping down from surnames to match him. The hissing noises around him grew louder. "Do you really want to see which one of us is stronger here?"

"No, I don't." He had the feeling he already knew the answer to that question, and it wasn't him. "Carmichael isn't worth this."

"That, I agree with."

"Stop this, then. Let the police handle it."

"I've let the police handle it so far, and they almost escaped." Akako shook her head. "You can't tell me for sure he'll be thrown into jail for the rest of his life—and even that isn't enough, not for what he's done. He killed Amelia and his own father; he almost killed me!"

"Have you considered that if you kill him, you will be just like him?"

"I will not!" She now sounded offended as well. "Why are you so judgmental? Alex has killed before, and you two are still friends."

"I somehow don't think that's quite the same," he said without thinking, and regretted it when that made Akako flush in anger. Saguru wondered how he kept putting his foot in his mouth. Everything he said just made things worse.

She looked past him towards Carmichael, still a silent and terrified bundle. A new viper appeared at her feet, a snake with dark brown markings zig-zagging down a sand-colored body. It slithered up her form and draped itself across her shoulders, then girl and snake alike glared at Saguru.

"Help me or get out of my way," Akako snapped. "Or if you want to fight me, _Saguru_ , do it now."

How had things between them changed so dramatically? Short days ago he had brought flowers for Akako, and now they stood on opposite sides of a thin line that may as well be a chasm.

He couldn't hurt her—he'd realized that the moment he pulled out his gun. He would never be able to shoot her, and no platitude would be able to stop her from taking her revenge.

Empty words wouldn't work here. Neither would violence.

Saguru stepped out of the way and raised his revolver skyward.

Then he pulled out the chamber and let every single bullet drop to the ground.

Akako stared at the now useless shells littering the forest floor, then looked up at him again with eyes startled wide.

"The life debt you said you owed me, back in the hospital—I'm calling it in right now."

Now her stare held flat disbelief. "You were gifted a life debt from a red witch, and _this_ is what you choose to use it on?!"

"Yes," Saguru said firmly. Then less firmly: "And, uhm, I'm sure Alex and Ai-kun would do the same as well, if they were here."

"It doesn't work like that, Saguru-kun. Neither of them are here to claim it." Akako raised one hand to stroke the viper that was still looped loosely around her like a living necklace. "Besides, my debt to Alex has mostly been repaid."

"Do it for me then." Saguru struggled for words. He couldn't think of the right words to say, so he settled for the ones which were true, however clumsy and scattered they were. "The Akako I've spent time with—the one who's Aoko-kun's friend, who's crossed continents for her family, who's driven and passionate and terrible at using the chain rule—

I like her very much. I don't want to lose her." He didn't look up. This may go on record as the most awkwardly timed confession ever.

Akako sighed, and when she spoke again her voice was almost sad.

"But this is me too," she said quietly. "The wildness and power and temper, this is also who I am."

"I know that now. That's all a part of you, and that's fine. But if you kill him here, like this, I won't be able to accept it. That's a part of who _I_ am. And I don't want to lose you." Saguru took a deep breath. "So please, let that be my debt to you. Let me give you justice."

For a long moment he heard nothing but his own breathing and the background rasps of scale on scale. Then Akako closed her eyes, and took a step back. There was no other movement from her, no muttered incantations, nor the briefest gestures from her fingers, but when Saguru turned to look at Carmichael the heap of snakes began to untwine like a rapidly un-fraying straightjacket. The vipers poured down from the man's body, crisscrossing and moving over each other in a living ophidian waterfall. Less than a minute later the only snake in view was the one hanging from Akako’s shoulders.

Akako opened her eyes, and met his gaze.

"I'd much rather see him dead," she said frankly. "But for this once, Saguru-kun, I will settle for your justice."

* * *

There was an unconscious killer at his feet, an undead assassin in front of him, and a useless gun in his hand. _Why does this keep happening to me_ , Alex thought in exasperation.

Yassen stood stock still where he was, quiet yet menacing. Alex spotted one concealed gun on the man within easy reach, and knew there were probably more. Upon closer inspection, the assassin appeared to be convalescing from a recent illness or injury—he was thinner than Alex remembered, far too pale and Alex somehow knew that had Yassen been in full health he would never have been able to sense him hiding.

_How are you still alive? I watched you die_! He wanted to shout, but didn't. They were too obvious. Instead Alex started thinking frantically. Yassen may have changed since their last meeting on Air Force One, but so had Alex.

"Those explosions, they're your doing, aren't they," Alex finally said. "And you were watching me before, on Perréal's balcony and at Ms. Renfrew's house. Why are you following me?"

A corner of the Russian's mouth twitched upward in amusement. "Contrary to what you may think, the world does not revolve around you, little Alex. This has nothing to do with you."

"I remember you saying that once before, and it ended up having a very great deal to do with me," Alex returned with narrowed eyes. He hadn't forgotten that Yassen had once blown up the Pleasures' vacation house in the South of France, nearly killing the man who had taken him in as a surrogate son.

"Only because of your apparent inability to keep away from the slightest whiff of trouble you come across."

"So who are you here to kill this time? Simon Perréal? Catherine Renfrew?" Perréal was the most likely target, given that it was his lab which had been blown up, but Alex hadn't forgotten the presence he sensed at Ms. Renfrew's house. Alex watched the man's face for the slightest reactions to either name, but there was none.

"Believe me or not as you wish, but I am not here to kill anyone," Yassen said mildly. At Alex's visible disbelief, he added: "Even professional hitmen need a holiday every now and again."

"And you thought explosions would enhance the natural scenery?" A horrifying thought struck Alex. "Are you here working for Scorpia?"

"There is not very much left of them to work for." Yassen stepped forward noiselessly. Nothing about his countenance changed, but the air about him seemed to sharpen. Alex resisted the urge to step back. "I do admit: when I told you to go to Venice and find Scorpia, that was _not_ quite what I envisioned."

"You said to find the truth about my father and my destiny, and I did." His heart was pounding, but Alex refused to flee. "Scorpia killed my parents. They almost killed me."

The man stopped and appraised him through ice-water eyes. "And so you've decided to follow in your father's footsteps." It wasn't a question.

"No, I'm done with spying—the lies, the danger, MI6—all of it."

Yassen's eyes flicked lightly from Alex to Andrea Beckley, still passed out at his feet. "You don't appear to be doing a very good job of it."

Alex had the oddest feeling that the assassin was berating him, like the overbearing grandmother he never had.

"It doesn't help when people who are supposed to be _dead_ keep turning up alive," he bit out, before the disturbing image of a matronly Yassen baking cookies in a flowery apron made him laugh. That would probably get him shot. "Seriously, how are you still breathing? And why are you here now, if not for Scorpia?"

"There are many lucrative opportunities for a sufficiently talented individual in my field," Yassen responded obliquely. There was the slightest pause, as if the man had been considering his next words. "And I thought it fair to give you a warning, or shall we say advice, here on neutral ground."

"You say you are finished with deception and danger, yet here you are, blinding chasing a known killer. Choose this path or a more peaceful alternative—I do not care which—but once you have made your choice stick to it. Do not willing deceive yourself about your inclination to actively seek out trouble."

"Have you considered an alternative career as a counselor?"

Yassen ignored the jibe. "Also: after Air Force One, whatever debt I owed your father and by extension yourself has been repaid. If we ever meet again, do not expect me to hold back."

Alex raised the semi-automatic in his hand. A low chuckle came from the Russian.

"Save your acting skills. You and I both know that is empty."

"So you _were_ watching me fight earlier." Alex lowered the gun. "I could have died. It was pure chance I didn't."

"I saw no reason to intervene." Yassen turned to leave.

"But you're here now," Alex said, and Yassen slowed almost imperceptibly. He didn't know if he simply wanted to have the last word, or to find some proof of what he was about to say. "Just because our debts are cleared doesn't mean this is a clean slate, and that if we ever meet again it will be as strangers. Don't try to convince yourself otherwise."

Yassen walked away as if he hadn't heard Alex's words. Alex stooped to hog-tie Andrea Beckley using her own shoelaces, then set off in the opposite direction. Carmichael was still out there. Hakuba and Akako still needed his help.

Neither of them looked back.

* * *

Akako watched as the vipers vanished from sight into the forest. The insects she'd scattered for them earlier were long gone. She would have to leave another bag later as thanks.

She stroked the smooth, leather-cool scales of the snake around her neck as she tried to piece together more of what it had witnessed. Vipers used their senses of smell and heat as much as sight. From what she could gather, Andrea Beckley was still alive but no longer a threat, and Alex was unharmed. There had also been a male figure watching their fight from the trees, but the female viper had been too far away to pick up any more details about him.

With some regret, Akako let the snake slip down from her shoulders and head back into the woods. She liked the viper and would have liked to bring it back to Japan, but recognized that trying to sneak a poisonous snake past British Customs in her weakened state was probably not a good idea. Maybe next time.

She glanced around. Carmichael was sprawled on the ground, unconscious but still breathing. With the last dregs of power she still possessed Akako made sure the man would survive, but have very hazy memories of what caused his ordeal. From what she knew of viper venom Carmichael would suffer immense amounts of pain, as well as possible necrosis and long term disability. Akako couldn't help a sense of vicious satisfaction at the thought, and refused to feel guilty for it. Saguru may have stopped her from killing the man, but that didn't mean she would make his experience a pleasant one.

Speaking of the detective...Saguru didn't look relieved that all the vipers were gone.

Actually, he looked like he was about to faint.

"Hakuba-kun?" He started at her voice. "Is there something wrong?"

Saguru gestured wildly with his hands; he appeared to be having trouble finding words. He opened and closed his mouth twice, shut his eyes, exhaled a breath that obviously failed to be calming, and said: "You can control snakes."

"Well, yes." Did he _just_ fully process what he'd seen ten minutes ago?

"With no visible method of command." A beat. Then the dam burst. " _How_?! Those were wild vipers, so typical snake charming methods are out. Pheromones? Parseltongue?"

Akako paused for thought. She had been too enraged earlier to consider what displaying her powers in front of Hakuba would mean. But then again, she had been willing to reveal her precognitive abilities to him before, even if he hadn't believed her. And she trusted Saguru to be discreet.

"It's my magic. I'm a witch," she said, trying to meet his eyes but somehow ending up looking at his shoes instead. "Not the Harry Potter kind," she added. She could hear her heart pounding a staccato beat in her ears. The comforting blaze of anger enveloping her earlier had receded, and creeping doubt took its place. Kaito had been the only other normal human to find out about her powers in a very long time (not that he was very normal, even by her standards). He didn't hate her for it, but (Akako was painfully aware) neither had he accepted her.

"Magic," Saguru repeated flatly.

"I told you before, but you didn't believe me," Akako said defensively.

"Well, you could hardly blame me, it's all so..." Saguru's voice trailed off. The hand gestures made a reappearance. When his words returned he sounded both frantic and strangely enough, offended. "I mean, you do realize Akako-kun— _this means all of my deductions were formed on incorrect premises_."

Akako stared. "Oh for Lucifer's sakes. _That's_ what you're worried about?"

"Yes!" He started pacing back and forth. "What if I'd encountered this, this _magic_ in one of my earlier cases without knowing it?"

"I doubt it—it's too rare. There’re at most a dozen people with significant levels of magical ability in all of England. Plus, anyone that powerful could easily cover their tracks up so thoroughly their crimes would never be discovered in the first place."

" _That is not comforting_."

"Even if you knew about it you wouldn't be able to do much. Why worry about something you cannot change?"

Saguru stopped pacing and looked straight at her. "I made a difference here with you, didn't I?" Heat rose to her cheeks, but he didn't seem to notice. "Ak—Koizumi-kun, I need to know more about this. Where do your powers come from? What else can you do?"

"I'm not an encyclopedia! My family would kill me if I go around telling everyone about our powers."

"So it's hereditary?" Saguru muttered. To her dismay, he seemed to be applying the full force of his deductive abilities to this new puzzle. "Some form of precognition, and control over vipers..." He turned pink. "Forgive me if this sounds uncouth, but can you also influence humans to some extent? ...Human males in particular."

Akako felt her own blush intensify even further. It was probably clashing horribly with her hair. "Why would you say that?"

"The...ease with which you questioned both the Carmichaels, even though Joshua seemed otherwise devoted to his fiancée. It would also make the behaviour of the crowd which follows you back at school a lot more comprehensible."

"...Yes, I can use a kind of glamour to make someone more attracted to me," Akako admitted with extreme reluctance.

"Ah." Akako tried not to twitch in the pressing silence that followed. She wished that Alex or the police would come and interrupt this increasingly awkward conversation. "Have you ever used it on me?"

Maybe she should call the snakes back. Akako considered lying, but she didn't think she was good enough to convince Hakuba, not when he was watching her so intently.

"Only to get you to let me help on this case," she finally answered. She didn't know if he believed her. Was he disappointed? Why should she care if he was?

But she did. With a sinking feeling, Akako suddenly realized that she very much cared what Hakuba Saguru thought of her.

"Here in England. What about back in Japan?"

"So what if I did?" Akako snapped back. "You've never seemed all that affected by it anyway, so what does it matter?"

"It does matter." She could see Saguru slotting his thoughts in order piece by piece like a picture puzzle, and now his shoulders straightened as he made a decision from what he saw. When he started speaking again it was with the same tone he used to explain his chain of deductions, only there was a hidden nervousness in his eyes. "It matters because if I liked you a little then and like you more now, that means it isn't just due to your powers."

A giddy feeling bubbled up in her chest, a champagne fizz of happiness with an unexpected undertow of tenderness which unnerved Akako. She wanted to shield it against the world before the bubble burst. She wanted to smother it in its infancy before it grew strong enough to hurt her. "...Does this mean we're dating now?"

Saguru shrugged helplessly. "If you like. In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit I've never been in a situation quite like this before."

Well, at least that made two of them. Akako certainly had her share of flings, but this was the first time a boy without a drop of magic of his own had found out about what she was and accepted her, without fear or censure. "You're very calm about it now."

"Given the lack of prior experience, I've decided the best course was to proceed logically." Of course he would. "I've established to my satisfaction that my regard isn't coerced through supernatural means, and from what I observed I would venture that you're not entirely uninterested either." _Damn, so he had noticed_ , Akako thought, watching him draw confidence from his reasoning much the same way she did from her now-spent magic. "Now to proceed either we both agree to pretend this entire thing never happened, or we can attempt to pursue a relationship. Reach a mutually agreeable decision, with specified conditions if necessary."

 She trusted him not to hurt her, Akako realized. Despite all their differences, during their hunt for her cousin's killer together she had come to believe in Saguru's sense of honor. And in the end, in spite of all the ways she could see this going wrong, she was too selfish not to reach out for something she wanted.

"Yes, I would like that. Let's try this...relationship thing." She met his eyes. "But no more trying to dig up information about my abilities. I am not your science fair project."

"That's fair," he retorted easily. "In return, no more using that blasted glamour or any other kind of magic on me without my consent. You don't need the glamour for me, and I don't like the thought of anything supernatural affecting my thought process."

"Then we are agreed, _Saguru_ ," Akako smiled, with just a hint of sultriness thrown in. There were more conventional—and enjoyable—ways of disrupting his way-too-logical brain anyways.

* * *

 Alex watched the two from a short distance, putting off the time when he would have to step in and interrupt, and also to decide what to tell them. Though he couldn't understand the Japanese that Hakuba and Akako were speaking in, it was clear enough from their tones and body language what was going on.

Alex was happy for them, truly. And he was definitely relieved that they were both unhurt. But watching the two other teens awkwardly trying to figure out the start of a relationship (obviously the first for at least one of them; he had been discreetly hiding behind this tree for _ten minutes_ now) felt like seeing a different world play out in front of him, a world that was divided from his as if by a glass wall. After all, what would someone like Akako know about darkness and deep evil and raising a gun to someone's head and pulling the trigger?

During the past half year Alex had finally began to feel somewhat like a normal teenager again, able to immerse himself in the tiny microcosm of American high school life, worrying about clubs and sports tryouts and the next History test instead of what new madman was going to try to kill him this week. Even this murder case with Hakuba had been interesting, allowing him to make a friend who understood a little of what it was like. Investigating had given him some of the adrenaline rush he still craved, but in a way that allowed him to retain his own autonomy – he could have chosen to step back at any time, without any repercussions or admonishments.

And then Yassen had risen from the grave like some sort of spectre, shattering his comforting illusions. His old life with all its danger and darkness could come rushing back at any time. He had no control whatsoever, no choice.

He could feel the panic attack building. Alex forced himself to take slow, even breaths. When he looked at his hands, it was with the sensation of being outside his own body.

He needed to leave. He needed to warn the Pleasures. No, he needed to stay far away—what if they got hurt because of him, the way Jack was—

Alex counted out his breaths. Inhale for five beats, hold for five, let it out over five…four…three…and his breath froze as the countdown jarred vivid memory: numbering the bullets one by one as they fired, knowing his life depended on keeping track correctly. Andrea Beckley raising the gun to his head with a triumphant smirk. Blood dripping red down Hakuba's arm, Akako collapsing from poison, Ai's face white with terror. Catherine Renfrew, appraising him with bleak yellow eyes. _I know a human weapon when I see one_.

She wasn't wrong. Even through the choking panic, a small part of his mind ticked coldly on. MI6 must have lied to him about Yassen's death. They were the only ones he could ask for information on why the Russian was wandering freely in a vacation town like a tourist instead of six feet under.

_I will never be free from this_. It wasn't the first time he'd thought it, but it was the first in months—a long time, for him. The thought of going to MI6 for help about something they should have told him about to begin with turned his stomach, but he couldn't see any other way. He needed to find out more about Yassen.

Did he? He and Yassen Gregorovitch owed nothing to each other anymore, neither debts nor vengeance. It was clear from their talk that Yassen would be perfectly happy if they never had to deal with each other again; a sentiment Alex shared. Why the assassin was alive and who he was working for now was no business of his.

There was no reason why Alex should try to find out more about Yassen. Nothing, except his own curiosity, except the instinct for trouble, passed down through his blood from his father, honed first by his uncle and then through years of death defying missions.

"Damn it," Alex swore. Nothing, except who he was.

* * *

"Alex? Are you okay?" Hakuba and Akako had found his hiding place. He'd been so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed their approaching footsteps. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm fine," Alex said automatically. He stood up, brushing stray bits of dirt and moss off his clothes while he tried to collect himself. "You guys looked like you wanted some privacy."

"How long have you been hiding there?" Hakuba peered more closely at him. "And what happened?"

"You look like you've seen a ghost, to use the English phrase," Akako added.

_Something like that_ , Alex thought, but he wasn't ready to talk about Yassen yet. Not here, not now, maybe not ever. "I ran into Andrea Beckley on the way here. She's unconscious," he told them. "I left her tied up back there."

"You stopped her?" Hakuba blinked. "Nice work."

"You didn't seem to have done a bad job here either." Alex pointed to the pathetic bundle that was Carmichael lying still on the ground. He also noticed that the stolen gun was lying safely a good distance away. "Saving Akako and disabling Carmichael."

"...Something like that," Hakuba said hesitantly, in an unconscious echo of Alex's earlier thoughts.

Akako snorted. "Oh come on. You stopped me from killing him," she said to Alex's surprise. "I'm still not sure he wouldn't be better off dead."

"Wait, what?"

"I lost my temper," Akako said dismissively. She frowned at the look on Alex's face. "What? Did you expect me to just stand aside?"

Well, he'd obviously missed a good deal while he was preoccupied with Beckley and Yassen. Still, given all that Carmichael had done to her, Alex couldn't fault Akako for trying to take revenge.

Then it occurred to him: MI6 wasn't the only way he could find out the truth behind Yassen's resurrection. Another option was currently standing right in front of him.

"Hakuba?" he asked slowly. "Would you investigate something for me, if I asked?"

Hakuba nodded, but Alex paused, reconsidering. On one hand, between MI6 and Hakuba there was no question who he trusted to not screw him over more. But Alex was still loath to give out the details of his past, especially the tangled threads linking him to his father, to Scorpia and to Yassen Gregorovitch.

The other teen picked up on his reluctance. "It's something to do with your history, isn't it?" He didn't go into more detail, probably to avoid having to explain to Akako standing next to him.

"Why not do it yourself then?" the girl pointed out. "You've already done some good work on this case."

"Alex Rider, detective?" Alex shook his head. "I'll stick with what I'm doing now."

But that didn't mean he couldn't learn from Hakuba. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He doubted that Hakuba knew as many contacts in the intelligence field as he did, for one. And he couldn't fully imagine how Hakuba would handle himself in that world.

"You don't have to make the decision here and now, Alex. Wait until the police have finished clearing up this mess, at least." Hakuba frowned slightly. His next words came more slowly, but they held quiet conviction. "Whatever you decide, I will help you."

The three of them stood together under the trees, a little way from the killer revealed and caught through their combined efforts. Shaken with redefined relationships and unearthed revelations, but not alone.

"Thank you." Alex smiled with invisible effort. Sometimes, just having the option of a helping hand close by was enough. The rest should—no, _will_ —come in time. "I think I'll try it myself first. But if I need it, tantei, I will come and ask you to help me solve a mystery."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeahhh, I know. That update took a ridiculously long time, (no) thanks to a combination of major life changes and massive writer's block. But thank you all so much for sticking with me, and I'm glad to say the epilogue is already complete and only needs some editing, so I'll be posting that soon!


	17. Epilogue - Moving Pieces

Yassen Gregorovitch heard the song first, a cheerful male tenor voice whistling _Tom, Tom the Piper's Son_. Then came the sound of footsteps moving towards him, the crackle and crunch of dry leaves under solid boots which may as well have been a fanfare to someone like him. He knew that the owner of those boots knew it too.

He made sure to turn around with unhurried ease. The male figure in front of him had spiky black hair and a wickedly grinning face incongruous with the stiff posture and the police constable uniform worn beneath. The name badge on the uniform read _M. Walden_ in neat black lettering.

  _And all the tune that he could play; was 'over the hills and far away'_ , the voice continued. Then Vermouth reached up and tugged off the black wig and latex mask, letting her long blonde hair spill down. Her wide grin remained—the only part of her face that was unchanged.

"Were the explosions necessary?" Yassen asked. "You said we were supposed to keep a low profile."

" _You're_ supposed to keep a low profile. I got what I wanted," Vermouth shrugged, tossing a black USB up and down in one hand. "The blasts caused a lovely distraction and covered up my tracks. Though I must say I was rather disappointed to interrupt that detective's show. So entertaining; you should have been there, Yassen."

"One false police constable is more than enough." Yassen didn't mention that there was little chance his own skills at disguise would fool Alex. The woman had shown too much interest in the boy already.

"Pshh. That inspector called in so many officers from other districts he didn't know as backup, it was a breeze to impersonate one and just walk in. So much security, and they never thought to suspect one of their own," Vermouth chuckled, then turned bright blue eyes on Yassen. "You were watching our dear killers' dramatic escape, weren't you? How on earth did they still get caught, even with the opening I gave them?"

"I wasn't present to see everything that happened, but I believe the detective Hakuba Saguru and Alex Rider stopped them," Yassen said evenly. There was no point trying to keep Alex's name out of it, not when she could easily check the police report later for details on everything.

"Ah, a teenage detective and the teenage spy." The cornflower eyes gleamed. "The infamous Alex Rider grows more intriguing the more I learn about him. _Especially_ since you're so tight-lipped about what you know, Yassen."

"I've told you what I know," he responded calmly. Vermouth could smell out a person's weakness with the instinctive skill of a shark scenting blood. It had been rather amusing watching her use it to get a rise out of other Org. members like Gin, who Yassen heavily disliked. It was much less amusing having it turned on him. "I encountered Rider in my work with Herod Sayle and Damian Cray. Those instances, combined with the rumors of his role in the downfall of Scorpia are more than enough reason to never want to meet him again."

He would never have revealed himself to Alex today if he hadn't thought it necessary to warn the boy. He supposed he should be thankful that Alex had decided to go chase down a murderer instead of staying at the house, Yassen thought in exasperation. Otherwise, with his luck, Alex would have probably ran straight into Vermouth.

"He was there when you got shot, wasn't he?" Vermouth asked. "Yet you didn't kill him today, or during the kidnapping in London. You had the opportunity to."

"I'm here to recover and enjoy a brief vacation before my test. _You_ said I needed to keep a low profile," Yassen pointed out. Vermouth had stolen his unconscious body from MI6, brought him out of his coma and offered him a place in the Syndicate if he could pass their test. He knew she had her own reasons for saving him, but he had seen it as a mutually beneficial arrangement. Until now.

This was why he was so annoyed by meeting Alex again. The boy always ended up interfering with his ability to do his job properly. Then a thought struck him. "Is he my test?"

"Oh no." Vermouth sounded genuine, but that meant absolutely nothing. "Why waste a potential silver bullet?"

"Who will be then?" Yassen was sure his initiation test would be an assassination, but that was all he knew.

Vermouth tapped one slim finger against red lips that slowly curled upwards in glee. "You know, I think I have an idea about that. I want to give you something a little more… _interesting_ than the typical crooked politician or tedious law enforcement agent."

Yassen had only known Vermouth for a few months, but to him the blonde woman looked... abnormally happy. Like a cat that just had a nest of cream-covered canaries tumble straight into its mouth. Was Perréal's stolen research that important to her?

"The theft went smoothly?" he asked. Vermouth nearly blinked, and Yassen saw her gaze flicker to the USB containing the research, as if she had forgotten it was there. Her features morphed to the very picture of indifference for a moment, but then she shrugged again and let her glee resurface. He didn't know what was more surprising; that Vermouth was so pleased, or that she was only barely trying to hide it.

"It was fine." She tilted her head a little in thought, then abruptly switched topics. "You will be ready, won't you? For your little entrance exam."

"Yes." Yassen had woken from his coma to find much of his muscles atrophied from months of disuse, and sought to remedy that as quickly as possible through intense physical therapy. It would take at least another half year to regain the peak physical condition he possessed before he got shot, but he was confident that he had recovered enough to pass whatever Vermouth and the Black Organization had in store for him.

"Good. With all the money we paid Dr. Hynd, it's nice to hear his high-fangled methods of treating muscle atrophy weren't just all talk."

"Why?" Yassen slowly asked. It was a question he had since he first woke up on a white hospital bed, Vermouth standing before him wearing the same Cheshire cat smile she did now. He had held it in, waiting for the opportune moment, and now with Vermouth almost giddy from some unknown boon was the closest he was likely to get. "Why spend so much effort on me? Extracting me from MI6, paying for advanced medical equipment and professional care, all before I was even awake to hear your offer? I am very good at what I do, but you don't lack capable assassins." Yassen was not that arrogant.

"So modest." Vermouth's smile did not waver as she scanned Yassen's steady expression. He could almost see the gears of her mind turning, deciding what and how much to say. "The Org. is always open to new talent, and the resources we spent on you aren’t unreasonable compared to the amount it would take to train a fresh operative from scratch. I mean a top operative, not some typical gun-for-hire. Scorpia-trained experience is nothing to sneeze at, even with them defunct. And personally, well—Gin is exceptionally skilled, but he has _no_ sense of humor whatsoever."

It was a tidily composed answer: reasonable, reassuring, rehearsed. It may have been true, but it wasn't the whole truth. Taking the years needed to train an agent from youth gave one the chance to mold the person into precisely what one needed, to instill an ingrained instinct for obedience if not genuine loyalty. Yassen knew that was partly why Gin and several other high ranking agents of the Black Org. disliked him; they had been shaped by that mold and distrusted someone who spent his formative years working for an organization like Scorpia. Being brought in by Vermouth hadn't helped, either.

He let none of his speculation show on his face. Instead Yassen nodded briefly in acceptance. Vermouth could go string along the entire Black Organization and law enforcement across three continents in a merry dance and throw in a tango with MI6 as well, for all he cared. He even tolerated her attempts to draw him into her games, as long as he could do his job and get paid.

Yassen had fully expected to die on Air Force One. He had accepted it—it was fitting, in a way, to give up his life for John Rider's son. Now, thanks to Vermouth, he was not only alive but free and healthy. His path was clear: he would pass the Organization's test, work there for a few years to pay off his debt to them, and continue on as a contract killer, either within the Syndicate or independently.

Not for the first time, Yassen hoped that it was the last he would see of Alex Rider.

* * *

"So you're telling me," Alex said, trying very hard to keep his temper, "that you took Yassen out of Air Force One, lied to everyone that he was dead, and then you _lost his body_?"

Visiting that hated Royal & General Bank again had been the last thing Alex wanted to do upon returning to London after the conclusion of the Mansfield case, but it was the only good lead he could think of. At least this time they hadn't pretended not to know him. Alex would almost have been amused at the speed he was granted a meeting with the head of MI6's Special Operations, but any mirth vanished when the top brass behind the desk of the room he was ushered into (after the typical security checks) turned out to be Mrs. Jones.

"Yassen Gregorovitch is dead, Alex," she said. "Not on Air Force One, true, but later in the hospital. He never woke from his coma."

"Then I guess it must have been a clone that I saw and talked too," Alex said grimly. "Who knew who I was, who looked and spoke and moved exactly the same."

Mrs. Jones wasn't sucking on her signature peppermint, but the way she pursed her lips suggested she wanted to. "Explain."

Alex did, sticking to the basic facts of his stay in Lymstock and his encounter with Yassen.

"You were briefly hospitalized for having some sort of hallucinatory episode a few days previously," Mrs. Jones said once he'd finished. "Do you have physical evidence Yassen was actually there?"

"I didn't hallucinate him!" Alex hissed in anger. "No, I don't have proof, but I would have thought that after all I've done for you, you would at least believe me!"

"That can be a dangerous thing to do, in this field." Mrs. Jones shook her head. "I do think you saw someone, Alex."

"But...when we took Yassen Gregorovitch out of Air Force One, he no longer had a heartbeat. The doctors operated on his bullet wound and managed to get his heart restarted, but he wouldn't wake up."

"And he died there?" Alex knew what he saw, but he was shaken. If Mrs. Jones was telling the truth...

"No," she said, frowning. "We moved him to a hospital under our control. He was stable, but very weak, and showed no signs of ever waking up from his coma."

"We were keeping Yassen under guard on the same floor as some of our own agents who were also recovering, including one who had recently returned from an undercover mission infiltrating a doomsday cult. He was successful, but the cult had their revenge. Before he was extracted they had managed to secretly infect him with a specially bioengineered strain of Ebola. Our agent entered the ward with a mild fever and a bad case of dehydration and was sweating blood three days later. He was dead within a week, but not before accidentally infecting one of the doctors, and in turn half the floor."

"And Yassen?"

"He was one of those under the care of the doctor who became infected. According to the records, once they found he'd succumbed they immediately cremated his body as a precaution."

"According to the records," Alex repeated.

"Yes." Mrs. Jones looked at him. "I know you're wondering if his death could have been faked and his body taken out somehow. But Gregorovitch was in a coma, with no immune system to speak of, nothing that could have defended him against a virus that killed perfectly healthy men in days. It may have been possible to smuggle his corpse out in the confusion, but it would _be_ a corpse."

"It was him," Alex said. "I don't know how, but it was him."

"Even if it wasn't, his doppelgänger is still a cause for concern," Mrs. Jones said. "I _will_ look into this, Alex."

"And I'm sure you'll be very forthcoming with the truth, if you ever find it." Alex's voice was quieter, but still scathing. He got up. "You can tell me once you do, but I won't be waiting."

He walked out, and Mrs. Jones was left alone with her empty office and her thoughts.

If Yassen truly was alive, it meant someone else was behind it. A person or group, who must be both very resourceful and very ruthless to come up with a plan to use a virus to sow a floor of dead bodies, so one wouldn't be missed in the carnage.

The current head of MI6's Special Operations considered what she knew of that doomed agent who'd unwittingly infected a hospital ward, of Yassen Gregorovitch and of Alex Rider for a long time. When she pressed the button to call in a subordinate, she had made up her mind.

"Raise the level of surveillance on Alex Rider," she told the agent. "And get me Joe Byrne of the CIA on the phone."

* * *

It was a cloudy morning in London about a week after his infuriating visit to MI6, when Alex saw a KID heist notice for the first time.

Alex was staying at the Hakuba family's mansion in London in the meantime. Hakuba had taken almost all of the first few days to show Akako sightseeing around London, from the Towers to the museum to Buckingham Palace. Alex gave them their space, not wanting to third wheel, but that didn't stop him from teasing the detective, who often ended up turning an uncharacteristic shade of pink.

But now Akako had returned to Japan, and Alex was staring at an unfamiliar package sitting on the breakfast table. It was a medium-sized white gift box with a dark blue ribbon tied around it and into a fancy bow on top. There was no return address or any other writing.

Hakuba reached to open the box. "Are you sure that's wise?" Alex asked. "It could be booby-trapped."

"Oh, it very likely is. I know who this is from though, and it's unlikely to be harmful." Hakuba gingerly pulled the ribbon out of its elaborate bow. Alex ducked under the table as the box promptly exploded in a shower of... confetti?

He raised his head. Hakuba's head and shirt front was covered in a layer of bright magenta slime, which the neon coloured confetti was drifting down and settling onto like sprinkles on a frosted cupcake. Hakuba didn't seem to care though. He had reached into the box and pulled out a card which had miraculously managed to stay a pristine white. He read its contents, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

"Alex, how would you like to visit Japan?"

* * *

Weeks after the Mansfield case concluded and Lymstock returned to its previous calm, the artist Catherine Renfrew was painting alone in her house one moonlit night. Suddenly she stopped, remembering one night like this, not so long ago, when there had come a knock at her door.

_The stranger waiting outside was in his mid-fifties but looked older. His hair was almost all grey, and the worn lines and planes of his face suggested a life of hardship and regrets. If the artist was surprised or apprehensive at seeing an unfamiliar man on her doorstep no trace of it showed on her face, which was as still and blank as glass._

_"I'm sorry to interrupt your evening," the man said, and his voice was rough and uncultured but not unkind. He held up a printout of a magazine article, creased neatly. "But I saw this article in here about you, and it had your picture. You look very much like your mother, did you know?"_

_Catherine did not react to the appeal for connection. "My mother and I are of the same blood, after all." Her voice was casual, even flippant, and cold. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"_

_"I saw your mother once, briefly before she died. I think this was hers, and now it should belong to you." He hesitated. "I can't say I believe in curses, but...others have kept it for too long."_

_He took out a black velvet bag about the size of an orange and passed it to her. Catherine accepted the bag and looked inside at its contents for a long moment. When she looked up again, the man was already walking to his car. Another moment later and he was driving away, out of her life as suddenly as he had dropped in._

 

The artist stared at the bright moon, then stood up and walked to another portion of her house. When she returned to her studio she carried the same velvet bag in one hand. She did not bother turning on the lights. The curtains were drawn back, and she could see her lovely garden gilded silver by the moonlight. She tipped the contents of the cloth bag into her palm, and held it up to eye level. It was a jewel strung on a long chain—an amethyst gem, the size of a small egg and filled with brilliant violet fire.

While she watched under the moonlight, a thin, glowing crack seemed to open in the heart of the gemstone. Like magma spilling forth from a crevice in the earth, the fissure grew in size and brightness, until the entire stone shone, staining her hand with light the crimson of freshly spilt blood.

As she had the night she received it, the woman who now called herself Catherine Renfrew stared at the glowing gem in her hand, eyes narrowed in thought. And just like then, one corner of her lips twisted very slightly into something that may have been a grimace, or a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So ends Viper's Den. I first conceived of the idea for this fic years ago, and the journey of plotting, researching and writing my first long!fic has been by turns instructive, frustrating and exhilarating. Thank you all for reading, and please leave a review if you enjoyed it!


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